Untouchable
by night-violet
Summary: The lone wolf outside the viciously maintained pack structure, he presented an open threat to all slytherin males. The alpha –in-waiting. Yet he was untouchable...for now, thought Hermione Granger,as she sucked the end of her quill.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: all the characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I' don't own them and never will. Damn shame , though.

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><p>Theodore Nott was different, or so Hermione thought. Wasn't he the studious one in his house? Unlike Zabini whose self-confidence bordered on arrogance, he radiated a quiet air of self-assurance. He even dressed differently to the typical slytherin. Malfoy wore crisp, tailored dress robes – certainly not regulation uniform and more akin to Hugo Boss suits. IN stark contrast, Nott'sshirt was barely tucked, sleeves rolled up to the elbow carelessly creased though his trousers were pressed, immaculate, expensive and typically slytherin.<p>

His peers like Greengrass and Parkinson, always seemed to affect an air of boredom, but his eyes held a gaze with an absolute focus. That gaze was piercing, intense and intelligent. It could teach Crabbe and Goyle a thing or two. It was a gaze that most people avoided. Even Snape did not dare challenge him openly, choosing to slate the Nott family name when Theodore had left the room.

The lone wolf outside the viciously maintained pack structure, he presented an open threat to all slytherin males. An alpha –in-waiting. Yet he was untouchable. Sadly so - Hermione thought, sucking the end of her quill before resuming her Herbology essay.

The subject of her thoughts sat in the row in front, his muscled V shaped torso stretching his shirt. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lavender nudge her partner Parvati, and whisper, "Hot or what?"

"Seriously, how can anyone work in this classroom?" Parvati tucked a dark lock behind her ear that had fallen onto flushed cheeks.

"Doesn't he know it? I bet he's doing this on purpose. That shirt is see- through."

"His back is such a turn-on."

They giggled.

Hermione's current work partner, Ron Weasley, straightened up at that point and shot a hopeful glance backwards at the two girls. Hermione bit the end of her quill hard to stop herself laughing out loud. Harry looked ready to fall out his seat, sniggering openly at his best friend.

Ron however, misunderstood completely. "What?" He asked them. "I can't help it."


	2. Chapt 2  REWRITTEN

Slytherin Common Room – later that evening

If Theodore Nott had not been born with a full head of hair, he would have lost all of it by now. He raked his fingers through his messy chestnut tresses for the eighth time that minute with frustration. His Herbology homework lay untouched on the coffee table in front of him - and that was not the cause of his frustration. He put his feet up on the table and exhaled deeply.

"Shall we try again?"

Theo snarled at the mocha skinned boy sitting on the black leather armchair in front of him. "Wouldn't that be pointless Zabini?"

"How so?"

"You can't keep your mind fixed on a topic for more than ten seconds. And surprisingly that includes the topic of females also."

Blaise's grin was feral. "I'm a generous man, Nott. Is it possible to cater to the needs of so many women if a man like me thinks of one at a time?" Blaise was a notorious womaniser. His predatory appetites were rivalled only by Draco Malfoy who came a close second. However unlike his competitor, the mocha skinned Zabini hunted outside his own territory, preying on females from other houses and Theo suspected, of _lesser_ blood. This was a suspicion he would not act on for the time being. At the moment, turning a supposed blind eye to Zabini's less than socially acceptable _tastes _was more beneficial to his cause.

Zabini picked up the black address book that he had borrowed from Goyle, and scanned quickly for a name. "Alright. I've chosen."

Theo furrowed his brow, leaned forwards and focused intently on Blaise' eyes until his own began to strain. Seconds passed. Blaise's foot began to tap impatiently on the bottle green carpet.

"You are not projecting the name. I can't read it from you."

Blaise raised an eyebrow. "So it is my fault now?" With a flick of his wrist, he snapped the book close. He smirked. "A bad workman always blames his tools."

"The tool I'm using right now is my mind." Theo deadpanned. "I'd rather blame yours."

Blaise was the only one who knew of Theo's 'gift' – a raw innate talent Nott had yet to master control of. Legilimens. In muggle terms: mind reading. He realised, it was one of the reasons Theo talked so little when he first arrived at Hogwarts. When one could sense thoughts and emotions, conversation became a time wasting, energy-expending exercise. However Theo's insight came in brief short flashes he could not control. His ability needed refining and for that Nott needed practice.

"How about I call someone over?"

Theo said. "Not Greengrass. Astoria is shrewd and I don't want her to suspect anything."

Blaise raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"She'll tell Daphne."

Blaise nodded in understanding. "For someone who rarely speaks at all in the class room, Daphne sure makes up for it in the common room." Zabini glanced at the hunched over form in the corner of the slytherin common room, everyone else having given her a wide berth. "Bulstrode?"

"I think we have insulted her enough already."

It was at that point the portrait swung open, admitting one of Malfoy's taller minions.

Blaise shouted out before Theo could object. "Crabbe, my man. Over here!"

Theo watched with growing disgust as the moving mountain lumbered towards them with a much grace as a hippo. He sat down. "Yeah what, Zabini?"

"It's for an experiment Crabbe. I just need two minutes of your time."

Crabbe glanced warily from Zabini to rest his bulging eyes on Nott. "What kind of experiment?"

"Painless, I assure you."

"Sod off, Zabini. I've got better things to do."

Blaise added smoothly. "You have better _things_ to do and I have better _people_ to do , so the sooner we get started on our experiment, the less time we waste...before our respective performances."

Theo slid two galleons with his index and middle finger across the coffee table. That ensured Crabbe's compliance.

"Alright. What is it?"

Theo shook his head. Malfoy knew how to choose his minions wisely. Their motivations were simple. Incentives were also simple to provide. That meant that their loyalty could be bought by others who could afford to do so. Zabini on the other hand was an ally, not a subordinate and Theo recognised the need for allies. Allies had similar interests. Allies worked as a team. As a team of sorts, Nott and Zabini complimented one another. Nott's icy controlled demeanour and heightened sense of self awareness made him razor sharp and highly disciplined. His intelligence combined with his Legilimens enabled him to judge characters, calculate the motivations and fears of those around him. His will could bend steel. Manipulative and Machiavellian, he moved people around him like pawns on a chessboard, pulling strings of many bows to suit his needs and fulfil his own ambitions. Nott was someone to avoid. Zabini on the other hand had an arresting magnetism that drew people to him like ants to sugar. His playfulness, confidence and charisma were a smoke screen that hid his true serpentine qualities. He was like a firework -he could walk into a room and instantly lift the mood of all the people gathered there. His cheery charm meant people were only too happy to do things for him. However Nott recognised early on that Zabini's loyalty was worth winning. His sense of honour and fair play was a rare trait in slytherin, which made him more a reliable character than Malfoy. He admitted to himself that Zabini's loyalty had been far more difficult to win than Crabbe's.

Two years ago, they barely spoke to each other, exchanging curt nods only when unavoidable. They had shared the same dormitories since first year and their bunks were next to each other. For a long time they had different interests. Blaise indulged himself in the wild parties of his house, butterbeer then firewhisky and girls. Indulged did not however mean enjoy. Theo realised that Zabini was simply trying to run from his own shadows. Partying occupied his time and helped him forget. Silence made him remember.

It was at the end of fifth year, when his mother died that Blaise gave up running and Theo made his first move. He realised from the Italian's sudden sombre shift in mood that Blaise could not keep up with the gruelling pace he once had set himself. Theo had even seen Blaise in a moment of weakness, behind the drawn dense green curtains of his bunk, coughing out angry tearless sighs that wracked his whole body. That was when he understood the shadows that haunted Zabini. The fact his mother was dead, meant that she would never change. Never love him. He immediately understood why Zabini craved being the centre of attention in common room, why he invited so many girls over to his dorm; Zabini had rather pathetically confused the notion of attention with love and acceptance.

He pulled back the curtains and told Zabini that he too had lost his mother and that she died when he was five. That he lost something dear he never truly had to begin with and that you could never change people even if you wanted to. He then left a stunned Zabini. Theo did not even look backwards at him, did not offer words of comfort. But his plan worked. A week later, Blaise sought him out and they were rarely seen apart afterwards.

Blaise coughed, drawing Nott out of his own thoughts. Nott turned his attention to Crabbe, whose wet quidditch robes were soaking the armchairs in his and Blaise's secluded spot. His nostrils pinched with disgust however to expect any better from Crabbe was to have unrealistic expectations. He said in a carefully neutral tone. "Think of something. Anything. It can be a memory or a desire – you just have to be able to visualise it clearly in your head."

Crabbe scratched the side of his head in thought. Theo wasted no time in leaning in, his gaze narrowed and scrutinising. He looked into Crabbe's eyes, past the muddy spokes of his iris, into the swirling darkness of his pupil into the dark recesses of his mind. Theo prayed he would not being seeing images of food, which he was aware constantly featured in Crabbe's thoughts. Focus...Theo's breathing slowed to undetectable levels...Focus...Crabbe was relaxing and his mental shields were falling one by one...Theo reached out...almost seeking permission to enter... he took a deep breath and his consciousness prepared itself to step out of his own mind and into Crabbe's...

An abrasively nasal voice rang out. "Nott, if you get any closer you'll be kissing him."

Malfoy had sauntered over, his quidditch robes soaked from the rain and plastered to his skin. "Get up Crabbe. Put these away." He threw his broom at his sidekick, narrowly missing Nott's own face.

_Damn you!_ Theo resisted the urge to growl, or show any signs of displeasure at Malfoy's presence. He had been so close to reading someone besides Zabini! Crabbe shook himself out of the seeming stupor like state he had been in. He glanced around at first vacantly and then his mind slowly began to register the people surrounding him. Zabini, a seated Nott, Malfoy standing behind Nott. He rubbed at his temples in slow circles. "What the hell were you doing, Nott?" he started.

Nott waved his hand dismissively. "Nothing. You fainted that's all."

"I feel funny."

"It's normal." He said, choosing not to elaborate further.

For a brief moment, Nott had forgotten that Malfoy still stood there.

He looked up briefly into those slate grey eyes and beyond. Suddenly it felt like his consciousness had slammed with Malfoy's. _"Bath."_ Theo said softly.

Malfoy sneered, lifting up his loose but heavily mud spattered sleeves. "Isn't that obvious?" He walked off to the boys dormitories with a highly affected swagger.

Blaise swore. "Who does he think he is? The prince of Slytherin?"

They turned to see Crabbe still sitting by their coffee table.

"Sod off!" Zabini snarled.

Crabbe did not need telling twice.

Both boys sighed and sat back in their seats. Theo was the first to break the silence. "I connected with his mind...but only briefly."

"Wasn't that insightful though, was it? I mean, I could have told you Malfoy needed a bath."

Theo nodded, slightly disappointed nonetheless. "I know. What time is it?"

"Half past nine."

Theo commented. "Malfoy's quidditch practice finished late today, I see." He paused. The highly anticipated Slytherin Gryffindor match was being held tomorrow and Theo had expected Malfoy to let his team rest before the big game instead of tiring them with a harrowing practice. "I thought you were on the team." He said to Blaise.

Zabini yawned. "I was before Flint made _him_ captain.

"Let me guess, you never made it to practice on time."

Blaise snorted. "Let's just say I value my beauty sleep on a Saturday morning. Anway," Blaise changed the subject, " Malfoy is clinically insane on a broomstick. It's like he's flying against a demon every time he's up there."

No, Theo thought. _He's flying against his father .He always is._

Theo glanced downwards at his Herbology homework and almost groaned. Honestly who cared about potential medicinal uses of devil's snare? Apart from Longbottom, of course.

"Shall we continue with our experiment?" Blaise asked.

Theo clicked his knuckles. "If you weren't aware Zabini, we've lost our subject. " Theo added as an afterthought. "The next time we chose a subject, you ask me first."

Blaise chirped. "Of course I will, Theo." He roared across the common room. "PANSY!"

The bobbed black haired girl turned around slowly from her position on the couch with Davis and the Greengrass sisters. "What do you want Blaise?" She called, feigning disinterest.

Blaise flashed a roguish dimple. "Want to satisfy an intellectual curiosity Pans? Theo is experimenting and he needs a glamorous, _amorous_ assistant."

"What is the intellectual curiosity?" Tracy Davis asked with piquing interest. The level of enthusiasm shown on all the girls face was disturbing to say the least.

Blaise smiled enigmatically. "Theo, of course."

Nott put his head in his hands. He had enough issues to deal with. Now in full comprehension of what Blaise was plotting, he watched with growing dread as the entire horde of sexually starved man-eating she-snakes stalked their way over.

"Theo, do you mind if Pansy and her friends..?"Blaise chuckled.

"Screw you Zabini."

Blaise laughed. "Personally I think science should be more _interactive_."

"Thank you Zabini for your thoughts." Theo said, voice dripping with heavy sarcasm.

"Mind-reading the opposite sex is what I do all the time Nott, so watch and learn, while you can... before they eat you alive, that is."


	3. X marks the Spot

**Author's note: **

**Sorry for the delay in updating. Here's the next chapter. Thank you for all the reviews. This is my first story on ff - so i intend to deliver. **

**I don't have a beta reader as yet, so the only feedback I am getting is from readers such as yourselves. Please let me know what you think. Advice, comments, compliments are much appreciated. Much love NV.**

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><p>"Here Pansy, sit down." The ever gracious Blaise Zabini offered his seat.<p>

Theo gritted this teeth realising there was no avoiding the situation. After Pansy had made herself comfortable, rearranged her skirts, tittered a private joke to Astoria, she looked at Theo expectantly. "Well, Theo what's the experiment?"

His eyes widened a fraction as he tried to think of a convincing answer.

Blaise interrupted, saving him in time. "Divination."

"Theo dropped divination last year." Daphne stated, throwing her magnificent black locks over her shoulder casually. She would know. Daphne was a member of Trelawney's _star_ pupil; her co-members also including Lavender Brown and the Griffindor Patil. The only time that Daphne would pick up the Daily prophet for an intellectually stimulating read was to peruse the horoscope section.

Blaise stammered. "He is um...going to take it up again. Did you know his mother was a seer?

The girls shook their heads. Theo had not known that either but according to Blaise Zabini his mother might as well have been Trelawney's fairy God mother.

"Dumbledore believes Theo also has that latent ability. He's just a slow bloomer. Right Theo?"

What he meant to nod like a dumb animal? This was irritating to say the least. His unfinished Herbology homework reared its ugly head, its presence a pungent smell hanging over the coffee table. The night was about to become very long.

Blaise clasped his hands together, "Shall we make a start, then?"

"Here you go, Theo." Pansy offered both her perfectly manicured hands, nails filed like talons. Theo did not move. He furrowed his brow in confusion as if to say what are you doing?

Pansy looked both shocked and equally confused. She glanced at Daphne, who looked at Nott.

"You're meant to take my hands when performing a reading, Nott."

"I don't need to Parkinson." He said dismissively, folding his arms across his chest, wishing he was somewhere else. A psychic reading. That was what he had been reduced to.

"Theo..." Blaise warned in an undertone.

Daphne yawned. "Professor Trelawney encourages a lot of physical contact. It helps your conscious state and Pansy's merge as one."

"Ooooh!" An excitable Pansy squealed, "Then we best follow her advice." Pansy suggested. "Perhaps I should sit in his lap."

Theo sprang up within his seat to full wakefulness. "Not happening, Parkinson." He growled.

Blaise tried to hide his growing amusement at Pansy's obvious enthusiasm and Nott's increasing discomfort, glancing sidelong at Astoria who was having similar difficulties. The pug-nose girl looked put out. She pouted. "Theo, I was only making a suggestion."

"I suggest you don't, in future."

Her voice was shrill. "There's no need to overreact! God, you make to sound like I was going to hit on you."

"If I did over react Parkinson, I would hit you."

"You're so...urgh! Nasty.

"N for Nott."

"Theodore Nott, would you stop being so awkward!"

He retorted. "You are the one being difficult Parkinson. All you needed to do was sit down."

"In your lap?" Pansy asked hopefully.

"No. In your seat."

Pansy huffed. "At least, Malfoy knows how to treat a girl right."

"Girl?" Theo looked around the room, glanced behind his own armchair and from corner to corner of the common room. He said emphatically. "Where?"

The silence in the slytherin common room was pin-drop. Needless to say, Pansy's jaw hit the carpet. Even the spunky Astoria Greengrass, known for her acerbic wit, was rendered speechless. Even though Zabini was not a girl, he looked in as much shock as the rest of them.

Theo almost looked pleased with himself. He let out a breath he had not been aware of holding and reached for his homework on the coffee table as if nothing had happened and nothing had been said.

"We are not finished!" Red talons wrapped around Theo's wrist, digging painfully into the bone. He was immediately reminded of why the brain dead bimbos of his house were sorted into _his house_. Females were far more vicious than males. Fact. He told himself.

"I want a reading." Pansy stated adamantly.

Theo lips twisted into a sinister smile. "Of course you do Parkinson." He removed her hand from his, very deliberately.

Blaise's gaze narrowed on the very action. For as long as he knew, Theodore Nott avoided physical contact. In first year, on the train to Hogwarts, Blaise remembered the sullen lanky eleven year old in their carriage who refused to take Bertie botts sweets that Malfoy had been sharing out enthusiastically, staring not at the sweets themselves but at Malfoy's outstretched hand that was offering them. He had _shuddered_, Blaise remembered with startling clarity, actually _shuddered_, before pulling a battered notebook out of his robes pocket to read. His curt apologies every time he accidently nudged Blaise' shoulders in the corridors, surprised Blaise and Nott never apologised unless it was absolutely necessary on his part. Then there had been that fiasco after his one and only _heated_ make-out session with an intoxicated Tracey Davis, four months ago, on the common room sofas. Blaise had been surprised at first, having never seen Nott in action with a girl. He had been chatting to Draco by the mantelpiece over the crackling and spitting hearth, watching the couple. Draco had commented over an unsteady glass of firewhisky on Nott's prowess, in spite of his apparent lack of practice.

_"I thought he was gay." Malfoy slurred._

_Blaise swirled his own glass. "The Virgin Tracey would disagree on that point." _

It was what happened _after_the groping, gyrating and loosening of robes that made for some truly uncomfortable viewing. Draco had sworn, spilling his drink on Blaise' Armani shirt. The party stopped midflow. It happened so fast. An inconsolable Davis was half carried, half dragged by both Daphne and Pansy back to the dorms. Nott found sanctuary in the library that week away from the prying eyes. At least tongues did not wag in slytherin. Both Malfoy and Zabini had made a united front on that- the matter would be dealt in-house. And it was. No one ever spoke of it again. Not even Davis. The same prim and proper Davis who had come so close to losing her virginity in front of all her housemates and to Theodore Nott. After that traumatic ordeal, Tracey, determined to prove a point, quickly shed all former inhibitions. Even some of the seventh years like Bletchley and Flint had come to congratulate Nott for thawing the ice queen.

They settled again into their respective positions and watch Nott lean forwards, concentrating on Pansy's face. Lime green. That was the colour he would use to describe Pansy's eyes. Fresh, full of life, zest and energy...and so alien to him. The shields to her mind he imagined would be easy to peel away, her mind open and unburdened. In a way, he was jealous of her light. _Don't fool yourself Nott. Such an open mind left would leave you defenceless. _He tore himself away from his thoughts and tried to focus on Pansy's, to identify any lingering thoughts in her subconscious; feelings of rage, pent up frustrations, unfulfilled desires, longstanding fears. He looked up around the yellow green cavernous roof of her mind for shadowed zones. Instead there were holes in through which light flooded in. He almost laughed. The obvious benefits for having such an open mind, that negativity leaked from it as soon as it arose, which made Legilimens more difficult. Pansy, Theo realised, was terribly innocent and child like. He looked again, marvelling briefly the wisps of white thought that moved like the smoke of burning incense, tracking across the space. Either she had been having a wonderful day today or Pansy Parkinson was a phenomenally positive person. He decided there was nothing to read, best to withdraw quietly. That's when he noticed, the small dark corner. He ran towards it. As he got closer, he could taste layers and layers of thought wrapped tightly around it. The acrid tang of bile and suffocation. He sensed the surface layers of disgust. He kneeled beside the shadow, and prodded it gently, unravelling it gently. The layers were stuck fast too each other. He had to pull more forcefully. The next layer was denial. Fear. Rejection.

Nott's eyes glazed over. The girls watched with baited breath. Finally he spoke. "Spot."

A confused Pansy crinkled her forehead. "Spot?"

**Spot**. A shame-faced Blaise put his head in his hands. What not to say to a potential hook up? What not to even mention to a girl, and Nott had simply gone and said the unthinkable. **Spot**.

Astoria's streak followed in quick succession, pointing to Pansy's nose. "ERGH..."

Davis cupped her hands over her mouth, as if about to throw up violently, retching and gagging dramatically. "What is that monstrosity growing on your face Parkinson?

"It is a **spot**, not a mould." Daphne reprimanded sharply, before swiftly turning her own face the other way, fanning herself hysterically.

Pansy looked like she was about to faint with sheer embarrassment, hiding half her face with one hand.

"Where did you buy your concealer from? It's obviously cheap." Davis snarled.

"Pansy, you should take more care of your skin." Astoria butted.

Pansy spluttered with disbelief as to the direction of the conversation.

Daphne quickly adjusted her fringe, to cover her forehead and hide another...**spot**.

Astoria said. "I swear Pansy; it looks too big to be a spot. Maybe you have measles."

Daphne held out a tissue for Pansy to dab at her makeup.

"What if it's contagious?" Tracey asked.

The girls all opened their mouth and closed them, with no answer to give; except that Daphne had already snatched the tissue back.

"You should all take precautions." Nott added sarcastically.

The girls were in unanimous agreement. They nodded once to each other, before standing up silently to take leave.

When the last one had shuffled into the slytherin girls' dormitories, Blaise looked open mouthed at Nott, staring in disbelief. "Well, done, Theodore. You have effectively quarantined a fellow house mate. Not to mention, you sent an entire gang of girls who were to eat out of your hand, packing with one word. SPOT! Spot!" He paused for breath. "It is a talent that is just not recognised nowadays. I should say I should say well done because you did it well but as your friend I should really be giving you dating advice! Cause you bloody need it!"

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><p>The next update: we will take a look into the griffindor common room in preparation for the slytherin griffindor games. The sneak peak is as follows:<p>

** "What?" There was a puzzled expression on Harry's face.**

** She tried again. _Talk to him. Ask him what's wrong._**

** _ You try._ Harry mouthed.**

** Hermione's mouth screwed up in irritation. _"You are not getting out of this Harry Potter."_**


	4. Potions with Slughorn

**A/N: Again another delay in updates: Apologies, but here it is the chapter, the longest one yet! **

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><p><strong>The same night – Gryffindor Common Room<strong>

Ron was not doing himself any favours. Or Hermione. Or Hermione's unfinished Herbology questions. The incessant foot tapping initially was like a hollow drum beat echoing inside Hermione's skull. However she found over the course of an hour, the tapping noise reverberating inside her head had the drilling intensity to cause cerebral damage. Tap...thud...tap...thud...Toe then Heel. Toe then Heel. Her frayed nerve endings were beyond repair, wedged between splintered skull bones, skewered soft tissue and battered continually by the resonance of a thousand cross-cutting echoes. She clenched the quill tighter, ground her teeth together and tried to pick up her train of thought from where it had been derailed. Herbology homework and the extraction process of the digitalis compound from foxgloves. Of the what?

Ron sighed. Oh...and what a sigh it was. Hermione lifted her eyes off the page for the fourth time that minute to glare pointedly at Harry, also sprawled on one of the sofas of the Gryffindor common room. Do something. She mouthed.

He shrugged. "Like what?"

_Anything. _

He got the message.

"Ron. Are you alright, mate?" He leaned forwards in the armchair facing his friend.

Ron closed his book in his lap. "Yeah. Yeah. It's all good." His quavering voice held as much conviction as a rabbit caught in headlights.

Harry said awkwardly. "Oh...okay. Well that's good." He paused unsure of what to do next and then resumed his work.

Hermione could have hit someone. Anyone. Harry. She gestured animatedly at him to try again. She leaned back on the sofa she was sharing with Ron. Big bold hand gestures similar to wings flapping were made behind Ron's hunched over head, in exasperation.

"What?" There was a puzzled expression on Harry's face.

She tried again. _Talk to him. Ask him what's wrong._

You try. Harry mouthed.

Hermione's mouth screwed up in irritation. _"You are not getting out of this Harry Potter."_

"Harry can you help me carry some books up the stair case." She said in a sing-song voice. It was unbelievable how none of them had yet to master subtlety. She pulled him into a corner out of earshot. "We both know what is wrong with him and it has to do with you."

"Not my fault, he's buckling under pressure."

"Just calm him down."

"Hermione, you're the woman here. You're much better at than I am.

"Don't you _dare_ start comparing me to his mother. He needs to hear about his quidditch skills and you're best person to tell him he will be fine."

"He _will_ be fine." Harry affirmed.

"Yes, he will...eventually."

"Of course."

She stilled, realising his current tactic. "You are still going to talk to him Harry, regardless of _whether_ or not he will be fine."

"I don't know what more I can say."

"Mione." Ron bleated. It was amazing how the tremble of his voice made a three syllable name sound like it was made of seven. "What neutralises ..."

She interrupted. "Black Calaber beans." She had finished the same question five minutes ago.

"Thank you." He said and silently continued. The only sound to break was scratching of his goose quill on parchment.

Both Hermione and Harry flinched as if hit by a lightning bolt. That was it? They looked at each other. Harry was now fully grasping the gravity of the current situation. Hermione was first to ask. "Ron, are you stuck on anything else? Is there anything else in your homework you want to ask me?" Because in normal circumstances, 'thank you' was omitted and replaced with a second or third question, depending on how many there was to the end of the page.

He puckered his brow. "No, why?"

Hermione gulped. "No, it's nothing, nothing at all." She looked away towards a rain splattered window; avoiding Harry's equally shocked expression and tried to calm her heart.

Harry scratched his head wondering his previous effort at counselling had been adequate at all. "This isn't about tomorrow's game is it?"

"No, of course not. It's all cool."

"Yeah...yeah." harry cleared his throat. "Then," He said studiously avoiding Hermione's burning death glare. "Then...we are all good." He sat back down in the sofa and took his shoes off.

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. Hermione cupped a hand over her open mouth. She was about to question him once more when the girl's dormitory door opened, and Katie Bell appeared in a loosely tied nightgown. "Hermione, can you come upstairs?"

"What's happened?" She asked.

"Alicia has just slipped on the tiles in the bathroom. I think she's sprained her wrist."

Harry sat up bolt upright. "Sprained her wrist?"

Ron stuttered. "But what about the g...game tomorrow with slytherin?

Katie shrugged. "I don't think she can play."

"Are we still 'all good', Harry?" Hermione kinked her brow, unable to resist having the last dig at him.

**Next morning **

All was not well with the Golden Trio. Not well at all. Potions with Slughorn was the first lesson of the morning and surprisingly enough potions was not responsible for the distinctively foul mood that followed Ron, Harry and Hermione the way to the Dungeons. Harry walked in the middle and slightly ahead of the other two. His glasses sat askew on the bridge of his nose, his hair a frizzy tangle. He was on autopilot, his body pre-programmed to arrive at his designated destination, though in mind and spirit he was miles away. He moistened his lips, and then continued mouthing the internal dialogue he was having with his Higher Self: who would replace an injured Alicia Spinnet from his non-existent pool of substitutions?

The Quidditch match with Slytherin was a short few hours away, and being his third game as Captain, he was feeling reeling from previous harrowing defeat at the hands of Ravenclaw. Gryffindor _had_ to win. As captain, Harry _had_ to win. He was also a little concerned about his recently selected Keeper and that keeper was...

Ron. Ron who walked like the living dead. He had chewed his fingernails to the point his fingers looked too short to be able to grip the broomstick. His breathing was shallow and laboured to the point every step was a sheer exertion of will.

Hermione who was also lost in thought was on a different topic entirely. However it was a topic very dear to her. Instead of carrying her school bag, she carried a stack of textbooks that included late returns to the library. Heaven forbid. Her eyes darted to either side of the corridor focusing on various members of her year. She then muttered furiously to herself like a mad woman.

The silence was broken eventually.

"Slughorn can only make three recommendations."

Harry jolted back into real-time. "What?" He snapped.

"Huh?" came a pathetic whimper from Ron.

Hermione let out a long ragged breath, "For choosing prefects. Only three recommendations allowed per teacher."

Harry scowled at the rude interruption of his thoughts. He had to stay focused on the task in hand. Constant vigilance!

Ron scratched his head, not fully understanding what Hermione was taking about and gave up trying to follow her line of thought.

Hermione said resigned. "He's going to give it to Malfoy."

Ron jumped, startled. "No, I won't." He said defensively. He looked at his own trembling hands, and prayed they would hold onto the quaffle tight.

Hermione continued, obliviously. "Yes, definitely Malfoy. Probably Nott and maybe Goldstein."

Harry ground his teeth in spiking annoyance. "Goldstein is not on the team. It's Montague and Pucey we've got to watch out for."

She sighed. "But Blaise Zabini's got a good chance too."

Harry muttered, more as a reassurance to himself. "He's been dropped. Too lazy. He never made it to practice on time." His voice trailed off, his attention turning to another high priority quidditch matter. "Half our team is not on form. After this game, I want to schedule another practice every Wednesday night."

Ron nodded absently. "Yeah I can make it."

Hermione's voice rose to a shrill squeak. "There's only three recommendations given per class, we _won't_ _all_ make it. Snape is definitely going to be biased to Slytherin, even though DDA is Harry's best subject. Dumbledore won't vote. McGonagall wouldn't recommend three Gryffindors – that's favouritism! Parvati, Lavender and Daphne Greengrass are definitely going to get Trelawney's vote. Professor Sprout is going to recommend Neville, Millicent Bulstrode and Eloise Midgeon. You two never paid any attention in professor Binn's lessons or in arithmancy and ancient runes...which is why we need to impress Slughorn!" She ended rather hysterically. "Well, at least we've got Hagrid's vote."

"HIGGS!" Harry stopped dead in the corridor. He covered his mouth in shock. "Oh my God – I completely forgot about Higgs!"

Hermione readjusted her hold on near toppling stack of books. "Of course, Hagrid gets to vote! He still teaches here!" She leapt up in the air as Harry's own school bag came crashing down. He kneeled on the floor, frantically tearing the flaps open, and pulled out a heavily crumpled, dog-eared set of parchment sheets. Some sheets even had coffee stains on. "Damn!" He cursed. "I haven't included him in any of the plans."

"What plans, Harry?" Ron asked.

"You know - strategies and flying formations for the chasers. Why didn't Angelina even mention him to me? He's a chaser right? No?" He scratched his head. "Oh my God, I remember now! He's the tall one with the blonde spiky hair - that tank on a broom!"

"Tank?" Ron gulped.

That was when Hermione was shaken out of her reverie. "Harry, is that your potions homework?" She gestured despairingly to the crumpled pile Harry held fisted in one hand. We are _never_ going to get recommendations if you hand that in! I thought I told you about taking extra care with homework and class work."

Harry was pointedly ignoring her, as he laid out each sheet on the floor before trying to remember the order they went in. He searched frantically for Higg's name. "I didn't include Higgs anywhere. I can't even remember how he flies. Ron, are you even listening to me?"

"Yeah, sure." Ron chirped. "I just missed what you said."

"RON!" Harry and Hermione screamed.

Hermione glanced briefly to the end of the corridor, noting the time from the hourglass present. "Oh my goodness, we are so late!" She stifled a cry at the watch and at Harry's position on the floor where he was calmly and nonchalantly examining a number of scrap sheets. "Harry, we are late!"

"I know." He growled.

"We need to get a move on!"

"Then move on." Harry deadpanned.

She snapped back. "Why can't you just put the sheets in the bag and let's go to class."

He replied smoothly. "Why don't you just go to class yourself?"

She always had an answer. "Because we are already late! It is better to go in a group and put up a united front than go as rag-tag individuals. Slughorn will be angrier at having three interruptions in his lesson than just having the one!"

"Shut up Hermione!" Harry growled. "Wish I hadn't asked." He muttered in a furious undertone.

"Ask what, Harry: Why I am even bothered about whether you two become prefects, when neither of you are the least bit concerned?" She spat furiously.

"It's not that important right now." Harry said weakly, not wanting to fight her.

"Not important?" Hermione's eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline. "That's not what you told me three days ago!"

Ron clutched his sides and groaned. Hermione and Harry halted in their tracks. "I feel sick." He mumbled.

All hell broke loose.

They were fifteen minutes late by the time they. Slughorn tutted disapprovingly before writing their names down in his register. Hermione apologised profusely while Harry and Ron dashed quickly to the seats hoping they had not been seen. The class were divided into groups of threes and had already started work on the experiment. Harry and Ron joined Neville, and Hermione partnered with Lavender and Parvati.

"The professor said some of the ingredients are really volatile. They don't mix well all." Neville said.

Hermione's head appeared from over Neville's shoulder. She chirped. "Try not to move any glass flasks unless absolutely necessary. Some of the fluids tend to evaporate with smallest amount of disruption. And for God sakes, don't tip the main cauldron." The last phrase was directed at Ron. "One more thing, at the end of the experiment you have to put your 5 glass tube containing samples of the final product over on the shelves in that glass cabinet. Don't even think of carrying them in your hands." She gave them both a tube rack and then a tray. "That's what these are for."

"Yes mother. "Ron grumbled.

She huffed. "Honestly you two are so ungrateful. Not even one word of thanks." She stalked off to her seat, rejoining Parvati and Lavender.

Harry turned to Ron almost immediately and asked. "She missed the fifteen minutes of the lesson, and how is it _she_ is the one telling us what to do?"

Ron shrugged. "She is a woman. They all share the opinion that blokes need spoon feeding."

Harry opened his mouth to counter that when Slughorn stood up and waved his arms, wanting the whole classes' attention.

"Just a reminder to the latecomers; over the next few lessons we will be brewing a series of complex potions. You are working in groups of your own choice today, but in the following lessons, I will be assigning groups to you." He paused for a minute as loud groans erupted from both Slytherin and Gryffindor students. "My advice to you is to read the instructions carefully. I cannot stress that enough. Work safely and watch the clock. As you are aware recommendations for prefect ship depend very much on the outcome of these experiments." He left off. The hint was hardly subtle.

Harry turned around and glanced over at Hermione. Her jaw was set in a grim determined line, her lips were pursed. She held in small dainty hands a quill poised over her battered notebook, like a falcon hovering above a cliff-face. Hermione would kill on request if it meant she could wear a prefect badge.

"Why were you so late, Mione?" Lavender asked, as she crushed willow leaves with the pestle and mortar.

"Don't ask." She threw a dark look at the three boys working haphazardly on their potion a few benches behind them.

Parvati laughed in understanding. "Was it because of Ron or Harry?"

"Both." She said.

Lavender giggled. "We thought you were sick or something. It would have been a terrible time to fall sick."

Hermione cocked a brow, failing to understand.

Parvati nudged her elbow, "Look at the table next to us. There are at least two smoking hot Slytherins presenting their chiselled god-like profiles to us for inspection. Now, _I_ would not want to miss this, any day, in sickness or in health."

"You guys are drooling over Malfoy?" Hermione asked incredulously, wiping her fringe out of her eyes with the back of her hand. The platinum blonde lifted his head almost immediately and glared at her.

Parvati hissed. "Keep your voice down!"

Hermione failed to suppress a giggle. She teased. "I can't believe you Parvati. I thought you had standards. The guy's a total jerk."

"Well they all are, if they've been sorted into Slytherin." Parvati pouted. "But why did _all_ the good looking ones end up in slytherin?"

Hermione countered. "Well, not all the good looking ones. Think about Marcus Flint."

"What rubbish are you talking, Hermione?" Lavender jested. "Flint puts the '_**fizz'**_ back into _**physical**_! Those teeth are a knockout!"

The girls burst into peals of laughter.

That's when Hermione noticed the other two; Zabini and Nott. Zabini was carefully measuring out 50 millilitres of synovial fluid, and the sight of Nott made her lungs seize ever so slightly. She dropped her head, pretending to read the instructions, aware of how much devastation his presenting side profile caused on her peace of mind. Right now, she did not need distractions, seeing as they were both competing for recommendations from Slughorn. Her gaze lifted from the print on the parchment and onto the male lounging in his seat like a panther less than seven paces away. Once again, his shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows; he was recording measurements on his sheet of parchment with unbreakable focus. She wondered how it would feel to have such focused attention directed on her. She would combust instantly. A blush had escaped onto her cheeks and was now running rampant over her face. How old was she? Twelve?

"Having a hot flush?" It was Parvati's turn to do the teasing.

"Shut up."

Hermione was served a hard nudge in the ribs as retaliation.

Parvati cackled silently. "I didn't know you had a thing for Zabini."

"I don't." She stated, as she started powdering egg shells, taking over the pestle and mortar duties from Lavender.

Parvati warned. "Zabini _is_ a jerk - a hot jerk but still a jerk. He is totally messed up in the head."

"I've heard."

Lavender added. "Apparently he has a thing for Ravenclaws. He likes them feisty and mouthy." Was there a twinge of regret in Lavender's voice that Hermione could detect?

Parvati put down the glass flask she was holding and motioned the others to come closer. All three leaned in over the table. "There was a slytherin party last week and rumours have been going round he screwed _both_ Greengrass sisters the same night."

Lavender's mouth fell open. "You mean both Astoria _and_ Daphne?"

"Well, who else besides?" Hermione snorted.

"I bet Daphne tried clawing his eyes out when she found about him and Astoria. I've heard she's quite protective." Parvati mused.

"And possessive of her guys." Lavender said.

Hermione pondered. "That's probably why he's been keeping a very low profile this week. Normally he gives the teachers hell in every lesson."

Lavender pursed her lips thoughtfully. "But I saw him this morning talking to Daphne and they seemed friendly enough."

"I don't know." Said Hermione half wondering how it took six years for Parvati and Lavender to convert the bookworm into a voracious gossip-mongerer.

Parvati jaw dropped in shock. "You don't think, instead of screwing the Greengrass sisters separately, that all three of them...you know." Her voice trailed off.

"That is..."

"So messed up." Lavender finished.

All three spontaneously snuck a sideways glance at Zabini who was stirring his cauldron's contents, totally oblivious. That was what they thought.

Theo looked up from his parchment, and was surprised at the sudden change of mood evident in Blaise' face. "What's happened? Did you add the wrong ingredient?"

"No."

"What is the matter with you?"

"Nothing's wrong." Zabini spat.

"Alright," came Theo's terse reply. He assumed it had something to do with the quidditch match that Zabini would now not be playing. "Did Captain Malfoy mention something about the game to you?" _And about your lack of involvement? Is that what this outburst is? _Theo often forgot how much more emotionally lebile Blaise was than he was himself.

"No," came the customary snarl.

Theo's gaze took in the prominent muscle ticking in his jaw, the white knuckled grip Blaise had on his wand. "You look like you want to hit someone."

The glint of fury was evident in Blaise's eyes when he said. "You can't hit girls."

But Blaise looked like he was to going to do the next best thing. Afterall, he was no Muggle.

* * *

><p><strong>Preview for next chapter:<strong>

_**"**A detention! He gave me a detention! As if I was some sort of pureblood-posse illiterate!" Hermione wailed._

_Harry braced himself for an unstoppable torrent of words mixed in with tears. Hermione flailed her arms around, half sobbing._

_"Is this your first detention, Hermione?" Fred asked sympathetically. "Here, let me see the slip." He took the pink detention slip from her and skim read it. He stilled. "You..." He looked up at her. "Did you really...oh my God." Words were failing him._

_"What's this?" George snatched the paper from him. He gaped. "Holy..."_

_ Harry glanced left at Hermione who was looking more distressed by the minute. Her reputations as she put it was **in tatters**. She sniffled. In a few short hours, she would be the talk of the entire school. He stroked her upper arm as if to comfort her. "It's okay. Don't worry about it. It wasn't that huge a deal."_

_ Ron guffawed. "But Fred, you should have been there in potions. It was classic!"_


	5. Snakes and Lions

**A/N: Okay, guy's, the rating has changed to an M - and not for _that_ reason! This chapter contains some coarse language, so read at your own risk. Secondly, I've posted up half of the chapter, so yes there is more to come leading up to Hermione's detention. Thirdly, I want to say a huge thank you to my last three reviewers who left me some wonderful comments that really made my day. It is for them that I've written and uploaded this chapter/ (half a chapt.) so quickly. Fourthly, i hope you all enjoy and thank you for reading. NV**

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><p>"I should be flattered, ladies, that instead of concentrating on the potion you're meant to be brewing, you have greater concern for my existing status as Slytherin House' finest man-whore."<p>

Hermione, Lavender and Parvati recognised the owner of the icily controlled voice, and all talk ceased instantly. Parvati gasped. Hermione froze and Lavender dropped the stirring rod. In that tense pregnant moment of silence; the calm before a violent eruption, all three girls realised one thing, slytherin snakes were _never_ oblivious of their surroundings; they just blended into them well. Too well, Hermione mentally agreed.

He strode towards them with arrogant brisk strides of a hunter till he stood at the edge of their table, hands braced on either side of their smoking cauldron, his amber flecked brown eyes gleaming with a promise of brutality and they had narrowed to slits. Lavender and Parvati had shifted and then scurried to the opposite end of the table to Hermione. He leaned forwards deliberately over their potion, their handiwork. "How that is any of your business, I wouldn't know."

Lavender gulped.

"Because..." He growled. "I would have to consume intoxicating levels of alcohol before I would even _fuck_ a Gryffindor."

He used the word 'Fuck' in the same context as animals rutting. He leaned forwards again. Even thought they were separated from him by a large expanse of desk space, he seemed to tower over all three of them. _Pull yourself together_. Hermione reminded herself that she had faced larger and more threatening opponents in her time. She would be damned if she was going to feel intimidated by someone in her own year group._ Stand your ground .Don't back down_. Silently, she willed the other two girls to do the same.

Lavender spoke first. She muttered. "It's n...none of our business. W...we were just talking about some rumours that we had heard."

His lower lip curled with grim satisfaction at the effect his presence, his stance and his voice was having over three apparently spineless Gryffindors. "There is a difference between talking and _squealing_, Brown. Squealing draws attention from the rest of the class." He lashed disdainfully. "You want to discuss the ins and outs of my private life in a very public forum?"

Lavender's voice began to strain as she answered, as she fought to keep her composure. "We...weren't that loud." She hiccupped. "I'm sure...and we weren't talking about you to embarrass you."

Perhaps Zabini was sadistic enough to enjoy watching her squirm under his cold gaze. He assaulted her quivering confused mind with another question, throwing Lavender into further disarray. Hermione felt uncomfortable watching. "Then why were you talking about me in the first place?"

"Erm...well..." She swayed ever so slightly. "We just wanted clarify some things."

"With who? His eyebrows raised in perverse amusement. "Me? He threw back his head and laughed scathingly. "Honestly, Brown, _you_ would have the gall to ask clarification from me? That would be the day."

Lavender looked crushed. Her composure fell apart around her completely. She searched for something to say, a come-back line, but the moment was already gone. That was when she felt the nudge in her side. A bony shoulder edged out in front of her own, pulling her behind the human barricade. Parvati stood resolute and faced Blaise Zabini head on. "Don't worry about how public your private life is. The topic of your sex life has already been discussed most thoroughly by the rest of the year."

"You think so?" He snarled again on the offensive.

"Oh, yes." She replied with catty confidence. "Like you've already pointed out, all three of us are Gryffindors. Since the party you attended last week was hosted by Slytherin, you can expect our house to be the last to have heard about it." She added flippantly.

"Although, I can't understand why you would be so upset by all this, unless there was some truth in the rumours." Hermione landed her blow, soft but direct.

His rabid gaze focused on her in its full intensity. "Tell me Granger, should I be upset if the rumours were true?"

She watched in growing horror as a long tapering finger circled the rim of their cauldron.

_Please don't tip it,_ Parvati mouthed.

Transfixed and helpless, they watched his finger gently apply pressure on one point, each time a revolution of the rim was completed. Each time he applied pressure; the cauldron bottom lifted up and leaned further away the support of tripod stand on its opposite side.

"Please, Blaise don't tip it." Parvati muttered pleadingly. "You're not supposed to move the potion around. Just stop, please."

He glanced up from "Sorry, Patil? Did you say something?"

With a single digit, he pushed the cauldron gently to one side, to a 45 degree angle and kept it balanced at its toppling point.

Hermione snapped. "If you dare..."

"Dare to do what?" He grinned wolfishly, before removing his finger.

"NO!" Lavender and Parvati rushed forwards to save their potion.

Miraculously, the cauldron pot righted itself but Blaise Zabini had been expecting that. He openly smirked at the obvious weak point of the Gryffindor girls that was now held again tightly in his grasp.

Hermione responded curtly. "The rumours are true and you are upset."

"Back to this again, Granger?" This time, two fingers began flicking their cauldron's thin rim to a primal rhythm.

_You're just trying to distract us so that we don't expose your weakness. _She mustered as much conviction as she could. "Why else would you feel the need to confront us directly, try to unsettle us, and try to topple over our potion, if you weren't feeling upset." Hermione could imagine what damage Zabini was capable of when provoked. She waited in dread for his reaction.

Blaise Zabini gritted his teeth. Until that point he had only regarded Mudblood Granger as being book – smart and not actually as being intelligent. She had the mind that soaked up random, trivial and boring facts and a mouth to recite whatever fodder had been relayed to it. He would have to revise his opinion of her, albeit reluctantly. In one question she had established his genuine discomfort at having his 'leisure activities' so starkly publicised. It left him open. Very open. He remembered that it was lions who hunted on open ground. A lion's strength lay in open and direct confrontation. Snakes only resorted to that tactic when feeling threatened and defensive. In true serpentine fashion, Blaise tried to manoeuvre the discussion back onto territory he could navigate.

"All three of you looked so shocked when Patil mentioned that the Greengrass sisters and I had a joint slumber party."

Lavender mumbled. "Oh, if it were only so innocent."

He ignored the jibe and pressed on. "The expressions on your faces were priceless and so...virginal." His gaze both assessing and lecherous swept over all three girls, who shifted uncomfortably. "You know, worse things have happened at Slytherin parties."

"I can imagine." Parvati said flatly.

He laughed softly before addressing her. "The voice of judgement speaks again and unfortunately all the moral advice falls on deaf ears." He indicated to his own ears.

Hermione snapped. "It clearly hasn't though." She imitated his voice. _"Worse things have happened at Slytherin parties – _You still have the need to justify yourself."

Score! Blaise did not look happy. His features hardened, twisted into an ugly scowl. He would not remain speechless for long though. "Condemn me as much as you want. After all it must be so terribly boring for all you good Gryffindors perched on your high moral pedestals, with no freedom to _swing_. Gossiping about everyone else's' sins of the flesh is the only thing that you've got going for you." The cadence of his voice tumbled downwards on the word 'swing' into a raspy, husky, raw sound. Talk about sins of the flesh - Hermione's clothes suddenly felt a lot tighter.

Parvati was not however impressed. "But you don't like to hear about your own _sins of the flesh _from someone else now, do you?"

He said bitingly. "It's called privacy, Patil, but the gossip you are wouldn't know where to draw the line."

Lavender scoffed. "Privacy! What a whole load of rubbish! You probably tumbled with Greengrass 1 and 2 on the common room floor. A very private and intimate setting, don'tcha think?"

Parvati was on the offensive. "But you don't like to remember the incident. Screwing the Greengrass sisters must have been a rather forgettable experience or." She said. "It was your performance that was less than memorable."

Oh, hell. What mess had Parvati landed them into now? One lesson she learnt the hard way – never insult boy's about their manliness. Even small boys had huge egos. Scratch one, they all bleed. Hermione turned around to face a certain pointy faced blonde y the name of Draco Malfoy, returning from the potions store with fresh camomile. "What's going on?"

_Scratch one. They all bleed._

Blaise offered an explanation – a highly inaccurate one. "These three girls were gossiping about my romp with the Greengrass sisters last weekend and feeling rather upset about it."

"What in Merlin's name? Upset? We were upset?"

Blaise ignored Parvati's outcry and continued. "They clearly felt like they had missed out on a piece of the action."

Lavender looked at the two in shock. "Where did you get the crazy idea from?"

Malfoy chirped. "Not Granger, Lord knows, I'm sure Potter and Weasel keep her busy in those library sessions."

Hermione gasped. Lavender looked thunderous. "Shut your mouth, Malfoy!"

Blaise quipped. "Not so happy when I stir up rumours about your best friends. And if you must know, I gave the Greengrass sisters a mighty fine time last Saturday."

Lavender gagged. "I'd rather not know thanks."

A heated discussion was now escalating into something more. Hermione looked at the hourglass and the set of instructions they had barely started on. Oh Merlin! What's more, neither Lavender, Parvati, Malfoy, nor Zabini looked like they were anywhere near finishing the verbal spat.

"Five minutes ago, you were quite eager to. What changed, Brown? Oh and by the way, I do like them feisty and mouthy. But you would do better if you kept your mouth closed."

Hermione turned around. A number of individuals were staring at them from surrounding work benches. She looked helplessly back at her two friends locked in ferocious verbal combat with Blaise Zabini. Oh gosh, this tiff was generating quite a fuss. Time to end this she thought frantically, looking for possible peaceful solutions.

"Parvati," She tugged on her friend's sleeve. "Why don't you measure out 50 millilitres of synovial fluids for me, please?"She pleaded.

Parvati shrugged her off. "You know what Zabini. You're pathetic. Just plain pathetic!"

"Just calm down, Patil. Don't get yourself worked up over nothing." Malfoy snarled.

"That's rich coming from someone who's never had to work in his life!"

Hermione interrupted said meekly, voicing lacking any sort of conviction. "Slughorn's coming this way." No he wasn't however, the spread of the Daily Prophet, the professor had his head buried in, rustled. A sure signs that things were about to get worse. _Come on Hermione, do something. Nobody was moving away, in fact more people were joining. _The crowd of innocent bystanders putting their experiments on temporary hiatus was growing.

If Hermione was not so upset about finishing the potion and getting prefect recommendations, she would actually appreciate how comical the situation was. It was descending into ridiculousness.

Blaise's voice shook her out of her thoughts. "You should come, Patil to some of these Slytherin events." He smirked at the repulsion that showed on her face. "Next time, Patil." He whistled. "And bring your sister."

"You stay away from Padma!" Parvati shrieked.

"But not from you?"

Malfoy sniggered. Damn, Blaise, that's an invitation if I ever heard one!"

Lavender "Don't get too excited Malfoy! She's a girl and not a broom!"

"Mouth shut, Brown. That's better." Blaise snapped his fingers. "Think about it, Patil. I can satisfy some of your inner cat's curiosity!"

"I'd rather kiss a pig."

Blaise stroked his chin, mockingly. "Yes, I forgot, Dean Thomas really doesn't know much beyond kissing. But never fret... we'd go further."

Hermione felt like beating her head on the table. This was escalating to unmanageable levels. All she needed now was Nott gallivanting in to defend his friend. Speaking of the Devil, where was Nott?

She spotted him, hunched over some parchments, completing the written part of the experiment, completely unperturbed or perhaps unaware of the commotion around him. She gaped openly, how anyone could work like that in what she termed a warzone. Perhaps he was ignoring them. Intermittently, he would raise his head, and calmly check the check the temperature of his furiously bubbling potion using his wand and return his attention to the parchments spread out in front of him.

"Can we have some quiet in this classroom please?" Slughorn called out, his eyes still trained on his Daily Prophet.

_Stop this. Think of a way to stop this. All four students were now shouting in each other's faces. If Slughorn sees this, we're all done for. You've got to end this now,_ she told herself, _but how?_ She gritted her teeth together trying to ignore the ever growing shouts and trash talk.

"You know what Zabini – I bet you didn't even have the stamina to screw two girls at once!" Lavender jabbed his chest forcefully with two fingers.

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><p>Harry put down the stirring rod he had been using for the last five minutes, and furrowed his brows at Neville. Both of them stared four desks down to where the racket originated. "Did you just hear that?"<p>

Neville shook his head in mild disbelief. "Yeah, I did."

Hermione was still formulating a plan when her friends finally managed to catch her attention, pulling totally confused faces. "What is going on?" they mouthed.

She put her head in her hands. _Why is this happening to me_?

Malfoy backed up, holding his hands aloft. "Woah, Brown. You don't mince your words."

"Well, you kicked him off your quidditch team. Was it because he never made it to practice or he couldn't keep up with practice?"

It was an exposure of another sore point for a seething Blaise Zabini. Malfoy pursed his lips, wishing he was somewhere else right now and not having to strength to enter into a polemic with Blaise. He turned away, coughing into his sleeve. "So...err Nott. How's the potion coming along?"

His poorly thought out question earned him a cold glare from the fellow slytherin.

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><p>Daphne Greengrass bent over her fizzling potion, removed a small sample for analysis. "People are shouting so loud, I can hardly concentrate on this." She complained.<p>

Pansy nodded in agreement. "It's looks interesting from where I'm standing."

"How so?"

Pansy replied, speculatively. "I think Lavender Brown has been cheating on Blaise with Draco. Blaise has just found out now."

Tracey Davis nearly spilt the camomile juice. "You don't say! I didn't even know that Blaise and Brown were an item!"

All three of them, gobsmacked, stared openly at the four students still ranting at each other. "Draco looks so guilty."

Daphne concurred, mouth still open behind her perfect set of manicured nails. "He's not hiding it well, at all."

"Look at Blaise."_And his thunderous expression_ went unsaid.

Tracey tugged Pansy's sleeve, pulling her close. "Why would Brown cheat on Blaise with Draco? I don't understand."

Pansy smirked. "Something about Blaise not being able _to keep it up_ despite all that practice!"

* * *

><p>Hermione was conscious that time was running out, conscious that Slughorn would raise his head any minute and conscious that one of the girls might snap and do something even more reckless - like hexing the slytherins. Parvati already had her wand drawn out, but she had far more self- control than Lavender, who had pulled out the heat mat from under the cauldron. What Lavender was going to do with that e.g. club Malfoy over the head with it, Hermione did not want to encourage.<p>

_Think, girl. Think!_

Blaise Zabini sneered. "Come to a slytherin party, and have a wild night with me Patil. It will be the best experience you'll ever share with Padma. Like I said, we'll make an explosive combination."

"You disgust me, Zabini!"

Hermione jumped out her skin as Slughorn hollered. "I think the noise level is rising a bit too high in here!"

Then something clicked. _I am a genius. She could not believe it – Hermione Granger now had a plan, _which would divert the attention of her two co workers back onto their potion and impress Slughorn enough for him to reward all three girls with prefect recommendations. Marvelling at her own brilliance (in a totally modest manner) Hermione went about implementing her foolproof plan. Hermione subtlety removed her wand from her robe pocket, and dropped on her knees to the floor as if pretending to search for something. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching, though inwardly guessed everyone's attention would fixed on the rabid dogfight above her. "Steady...she told herself...steady...wait for the right moment...wait for it. **Aim**. She creased her forehead, focusing intensely on the target...**FIRE**!

**BANG!**

Parvati screamed. Malfoy yelped. Blaise Zabini swore very loudly and quickly grabbed his dress robes from the back of his chair, before the frothy, fizzling pale pink potion engulfed the whole table, dripping over the sides, slopping onto the floor. Theodore Nott's carefully penned notes were not so lucky. Nott sprang from his seat, quill in hand, gazing at his sopping wet mulched work still on the table, brows knotted in confused anguish. The cauldron lay on its side lamenting, with a hole through one side.

"You idiot!" Malfoy bellowed, roughly grabbing hold of Theo's shirt. "What the hell were you doing Nott?"

The Gryffindor girls now completely forgotten by Blaise, he too made his way over, positively fuming. "You were meant to watch over the potion, and make sure it didn't get too hot!"

"It didn't!" Nott snarled, dislodging Malfoy's hand with barely restrained force. "The temperature was fine. I checked it constantly. The potion didn't need stirring for another three minutes."

"Right. Another three minutes." Blaise said flatly, before making a pointed glare around the pink froth that was quickly solidifying on the furniture and the floor.

Hermione had positioned herself behind Parvati and Lavender, who were also equally shocked at the explosion. Her friends fanned themselves using the instructions sheet, warding off the pale pink fumes. Thank God, the potion was barely brewed, that it caused so little damage.

"What are you going to do?" Lavender asked the boys, voice quaking slightly.

"Isn't it obvious, Brown?" Malfoy replied tersely. "We've got to tell Slughorn, clear this mess and then start again."

Blaise turned sharply, holding their cauldron in one hand, examining the perfect hole in the side. "Did any of you..." He asked the girls, suspiciously.

But Nott interrupted in time. "No, the school cauldrons are all poor quality and of uneven thickness. That hole would have been a weak point in the side that collapsed first." He took the cauldron from Blaise's outstretched arm. "I'll go and replace this." But his stony gaze never left Hermione.

Hermione turned to Parvati and said queasily. "I'm going to get us some fresh camomile."

Parvati nodded. "I'll start heating our cauldron. Lav, have you added the egg shells?"

Hermione took her leave swiftly, knowing the longer she stayed, the more her facade would crack.

And he watched her, following her progress across the room with unblinking, unnerving and all-knowing stare. A suffocating stare that even Hermione Granger could feel the weight of as she reached the potions store room. He knew. She knew that he knew. But why did he interrupt Blaise? An inner voice answered; because Nott wants to settle this with you, himself. And he know that he will. She glanced back over her shoulders, and her eyes sought his arresting sharp grey gaze ten metres away. He stood, leaning against her desk, arms folded casually over each other, and legs crossed at the ankles. he was a calm, stauesque figure in the mist of all the hurrying students. His eyes were piercing and like a vice, they locked on her.

* * *

><p><strong>More to come...so watch this space.<strong>


	6. Off the Wall

A/N: **This space is now occupied! Okay guys, this has been a beast of a chapter to pen down (hence the delay in updating). It's my longest chapter yet! I'd love to hear what you make of my efforts. Special thanks to all my reviewers who have left me some wonderful and motivational comments. Hope you liiiiike it. NV**

**P.S: Regarding the reasons behind Hermione's detention, I bet you didn't see this coming...**

* * *

><p>Hermione was convinced she had been sorted into the wrong house because her actions towards Theodore Nott's cauldron had been decidedly slytherin. For the last twenty minutes, as Parvati had been issuing orders like Mussolini and Lavender had been scurrying round like a headless chicken, Hermione had been staring vacantly into space, mindlessly stirring the potion, and having a frank and uncomfortable communion with her conscience.<p>

An image appeared in of Theodore Nott's notes – totally ruined by the frothing pink mixture. The elegant regularity of his script had been reduced to inky blotches on the parchment and the parchment itself had been mulched to pulp. For someone so controlled, in those split seconds, a hundred different emotions radiated pulsed through him – disappointment, disheartenment, confusion, anguish, anger, frustration and it had all been so evident on his face. She remembered the hissy fit she had thrown two weeks ago in the library when Ron spilt pumpkin juice on her arithmancy notes. She had nearly thrown three entire tomes off the book shelf at him, called him all derogatory curses under the sun and Merlin she had nearly hexed him with a hundred canaries. Nott's outward reaction to his work being destroyed was mild in comparison – a fact that tore down the floodgates that held her guilt in check. She had behaved like a petulant child towards Ron while Nott had reacted like a mature young adult. But Hermione Granger knew the value of hard work; the dedication that had gone into producing it and the pride which followed at its completion, so how could she have done that to a fellow student? How could she have done that to Theodore Nott? Her conscience continued to rant and curse her.

And so Hermione Granger was fully occupied fighting on one front with her conscience. The second front where she expecting attack from was of course the slytherin himself: Theodore Nott whose icy glare promised retribution. That glare could pierce rock. She had shuddered visibly. It was the sort of heated intense cold look that turned her insides out. Then it turned her_ on_. And that was a revelation. The still rational part of her brain was disgusted by it. _You are not a masochist! You are neither going to behave like one! _And more importantly, Hermione was aware that regardless of whether she belonged to the gentler sex, Nott was not going to be gentle with her.

Nott was a slytherin male – a beautiful cohort of backstabbing, manipulative, cruel and vindictive young men. They were a poisonous fragrance; an exotic blend of allure and attack. It was not a simple case of breaking a cauldron and ruining his work. Hermione realised that in a way she had challenged him openly, threatening him. Snakes felt uncomfortable in answering direct unprovoked confrontation; their natural instant was to recoil then strike. The stony silence from his work bench suggested he had 'recoiled' and now she was waiting in dread every passing minute for the imminent strike and bite.

She had also derailed his efforts for attaining prefect recommendations. Hold up! That meant he wanted prefect recommendations. She turned inconspicuously to his table where he was hunched over crushing egg shells, his grip around the mortar strong and each stroke was decisive. He confused her sometimes. Correct that –a lot of times. He was a death eater's son and yet he did not hang around in the death eater's crowd at school. He spent a lot of time working in the library, which was how she noticed him in the first place. Thirdly, he _wanted_ to be a prefect. An inner voice snorted. A lot of slytherins want to be prefects, so that they could abuse the power that came with the responsibility. It gave them an opportunity to bully younger students, deduct points from other houses and make out in broom closets when they were supposed to be doing night rounds.

Funny enough, Hermione had never heard of any gossip surrounding Theodore and slytherin girls. Perhaps he was just more discreet. Perhaps he made out with girls so often that it really wasn't gossip. She threw his muscled back another forlorn glance – he could snap his fingers and have any girl he wanted. She frowned; Nott and Tracey Davis would have made a cute couple. She shook herself – her current self woven fantasies were merely a ploy to distract her from the uncomfortable truth that Nott was about to wound her badly. Too bad, he looked like her dashing knight of darkness. He definitely did not feel that way about her.

Hermione blew out a huge breath. Finally, she had (unintentionally though not unfortunately) attracted Nott's attention but the circumstances were not ideal. This was negative attention. Rather, she wished the ground would swallow her up and that she was somewhere else. In fact she wished she had not destroyed his cauldron. "Why is this happening to me?"

"What Mione." Lavender asked absently, wiping her brow with the back of her hand, as she quickly pencil sketched a table on her scrap of parchment.

"Nothing," came the muttered evasive reply.

Thankfully, Lavender did not press further.

Hermione stopped. Why did she think even think to blow up the cauldron, in the first place? It was a good question. The decision to do so was very 'out of character.' In fact, looking back, she could think of a dozen other methods to have stopped the argument. The decision was irrational. She had not been thinking rationally. Was it out of fear that Slughorn would see her group arguing with Slughorn, causing further disruption to the lesson? Or was it because she wanted the recommendations so badly? No. It could not have been. She would not have acted so childishly. _Come on! Think, stupid!_ She grasped a section and pulled at the roots until they started screaming in unison. She had been provoked to act the way she did. The question was what had provoked her. She thought back to the scene of chaos and mayhem, slang and curses, open baiting and provocations and total loss of control of the situation. What would have triggered her outburst in the midst of all of that. Then it clicked. The trigger was undeterred and unshakeable calm. She gave a tight smile. Who apart from Theodore Nott had been radiating calm in the midst of the argument?

Hermione felt an unexplainable anger tightening within her. He had been _calm_. He had just sat there in the midst of a raging argument that involved both his and her friends and he had done nothing but being _calm_! He had been behaving like it wasn't his problem. He had been acting oblivious to the taunting, back chatting and the rude, inappropriate comments Malfoy and Blaise had been slinging. Some of those comments should never have been uttered to any girl. He did not attempt to diffuse the situation and not even intervened, leaving Hermione the only other rational member of the two groups to break up the fight. What a prick! The image of him slaving away studiously at his desk, recording results, taking temperature readings, drawing graphs came unbidden into her head. That could have been her instead. But no, she had taken the time to intervene and sort the problem. Suddenly Hermione had started feeling very good about her decision to blow his cauldron. The bastard deserved everything he got! Hermione thumped her hand on the table.

A surprised Parvati looked up from her flask of frog spawn she had been counting. "Something the matter?"

"No," she replied all too quickly realising that she what had done. The noticeable quiver in her shoulders was visible all the way to Theodore Nott's table. His eyes narrowed in scrutiny.

"Well." Parvati replied briskly. "We've only got fifteen minutes left so you better get a move on with...whatever you're doing."

Oh, the irony of the situation. At that moment, Neville arrived at the table asking for some advice. Parvati was happy to help, leaving Hermione more time to indulge in her own thoughts.

_Question – had she been expecting his help?_ She rocked back onto her heels, pondering. The answer to that question would have been yes. Yes, she had. She could not understand why he had not stepped in and done something. That made her angry again. _I felt helpless and he could have helped me._

_Question – did you wish that you could have been in his shoes, working and ignoring what was going on around her?_ That question scrambled her completely. She was stumped. No answer. Come on Hermione Granger, you've got to have an answer? Her mind was still blank. "Erm...no?" That was sheer denial and even in her muddled state of mind, she could recognise it.

Her inner voice continued to interrogate her: _Question: did you wish you didn't have to rush in to sort other people's problems and be a little bit like Theodore Nott – standing back and let things head to their natural conclusion. Did you wish you didn't have to feel the need to save the day?_ The last question shook her to the core. She almost choked. Saving the day, was one of the few things that she was good at and people valued her for? What was she apart from a boring nerdy bookworm who hung around with the great famous boy who lived, and all the member of the quidditch team? Everyone knew the affable and charming brood that were the Weasleys. Everyone knew Harry. But who remembered her for anything good that she did, that didn't include saving the day? Who was she if she didn't save the day? Was she even worth remembering? No, she was teased constantly about her brusque manners, her pathetic and not-cool swotting, her bushy hair and buck teeth. That's what people truly felt and spoke about her. They did not mention how she was brutally honest to a fault; she was driven to do well in class; she looked natural; her sublime beauty was not artificial in anyway; she never spent hours glued to a mirror; she was never that body conscious. What was undeniable was that it was her brains; knowledge, and her support that helped Harry find the philosopher's stone, get through the rounds of the triwizard tournament and help them hand in their homework on time. If she did not save the day, how was she remembered positively?

_Nott does not feel the need to save the day._

She acknowledged that with a nod. No he didn't feel that need. Her lower lip started quivering. She bit it. The lump in her throat was growing increasingly uncomfortable. She lowered her head, hiding behind her dense tawny fringe. No, Theodore Nott also known for his terse reticent manner, his keen intellectual ability, his spare beauty. She wondered if he even needed to glance in the mirror every morning before leaving his dorm. Hermione pulled a stray curl behind her ears and tried focusing on her task. A tear drop fell into the potion. She had not realised. He was like her in many ways and yet he was not.

_You're jealous of him._

That riled her like nothing else did. Jealous? JEALOUS? Why would she be jealous? Maybe it was because Theodore Nott could maintain the same high standard of work in an environment that was not conducive to learning. Maybe because he does not have to work as hard to attain the same amount of knowledge as she did. Maybe because he never shouted out answers in class or waves his hand from side to side instead of just raising it! He never raised his hand, but teachers were always aware that he knew the answers. Maybe it is because his intelligence and his curt manner is not abrasive. Maybe he is not as patronising as you are. Then the true answer came spontaneously with a hard, biting fury that winded her. "Maybe it's because he is a cooler, more attractive, more sophisticated and quieter version of you."

Hermione felt run over by a freight train. She gasped at the truth and then clutched the side of the table for support. Her legs felt like jelly.

_All those facts were lying dormant, eating into your subconscious and this one incident of him remaining calm when you felt you had to do something, was the last straw for you Hermione. And you reacted."_

Hot angry tears began to roll freely.

"Mione, what's wrong?" Lavender, instinctively asked. She dropped the herbs she had been holding and put an arm around her.

Parvati brushed Neville aside, before enquiring. "What happened?"

Hermione sniffled, trying to keep her welling eyeballs out of sight behind her fringe. "No, I'm fine really. I just got some dust in my eye...that's all."

Parvati intercepted Lavender with a meaningful glance and a shake of the head, before Lavender went to hug their distraught friend.

Parvati continued. "Hermione, there's a mirror and a wash basin in the store room if you want to go take care of the dust." She added quickly, knowing full well Hermione would refuse to go with the excuse of making a scene. " If you could also bring us some filter paper back - that would be really handy. Don't rush. We won't filter the potion in the next ten minutes though."

"Yes sure." Hermione whispered. "I'll go fetch it. The brown paper, right?" She kept her head low, and wove between her two concerned friends, before making a quick dash into the store room.

"Take care of your eyes, first!" Parvati called after her.

When Hermione had disappeared from view, Lavender had hounded on Parvati. "What was that for? She was clearly upset about something and you didn't even want to ask what it was?"

Parvati replied with irritancy. "The last thing Hermione wants when she is upset is an _audience_. You know what she's like. She's tough as nails and as proud as a peacock. What she wants is privacy! Now come on! We haven't got time to stand here and argue!"

Lavender nodded slowly in understanding. "I didn't say anything to her. Neither did you."

Parvati said forcefully. "She'll tell us what made her upset in her own time! Now, drop the subject!" She handed Lavender back the herbs and with a quick flick of the head, told her to get going. What Parvati hadn't realised that Lavender was not the only one to get going. Theodore Nott's seat, a mere five steps away had been recently vacated.

* * *

><p>The store room was dimly lit, all four walls lined with evenly spaced wooden shelf racks. The open central space was further divided into smaller alcoves by more racks. The store room was a miniature version of the library except there were jars upon jars of ingredients replacing books.<p>

Hermione made a beeline for the far left alcove, where she knew that filter paper was kept. The tears were now streaming down her face. She paused to wipe them with her sleeve. Her own vision was blurring. "Stop it! Get over it, now." Whenever Hermione gave herself attention, she always ended up red –eyed and teary. This was the main reason she focused her attention on trying to help and correct other people (like Ron.) Consequently, she never had to face her own inadequacies. It was a selfish reason for helping people out and for 'saving the day' but the benefit, she acknowledged, was mutual. She was still a teenager. She had the occasional low self confidence anxiety. One method she used to overcome low moods was to distract herself with things to do. The last thing she wanted was to do was to publically break down in front of her house mates and the slytherins simply because she was in a volatile frame of mind. How in the world, had she managed to work herself into this quivering, blubbering mess? Hermione Granger was as much disgusted as much as she was upset. Focus! She wiped her tears away roughly, the sleeve of her shirt catching painfully, as it scraped her skin.

Didn't Professor Snape used to keep brown filter paper in a tray on the bottom shelf? She got down on her knees and started searching. She remembered the tray had been blue and it was labelled. Here! She almost smiled at the discovery. Carefully, she pulled the tray out, laying it on the ground, and began to sift through the contents. She frowned. There was no brown filter paper - only white, black and green. She scratched her head. Where would Slughorn keep it? Carelessly, she wrenched a second tray from the bottom shelf and not pausing to hear its resounding clatter on the floor. Her eyes skimmed over the contents. Dam! It was not there either.

She reached upwards, fumbling for the third tray, as she continued to peer at the jars on the bottom shelf. Her fingers finally wrapped themselves around something unusual. Hermione stilled. Her heart stopped beating. Instead of clasping a tray, her fingers were caged in the grasp of another hand.

A hard, malleable male hand, whose long fingers knotted and closed around her delicate wrist and with one sharp tug, pulled her up onto her feet, rotating her whole body 180 degrees. **Smack**! Her backbone almost cracked on impact, arching up against the spine of the wooden shelf rack. Her head was knocked back and before she accidently pushed the entire rack backwards into the wall, a second muscled arm shot out and closed around her waist, steadying her. The entire case creaked and rocked on its base, the glass jars threatening to tip and slide off. Finally after a nerve-wracking fifteen seconds, everything stilled. He breathed a sigh of relief. Their eyes met. Her breath rushed out of her.

"Nott!"

"Granger." He stated. His right arm dropped from around her waist but he did not step back; searching for any signs of damage on the shelf rack he had nearly thrown her against. There was no broken glass. Good. That was when he remembered he had Granger's trembling form trapped between his and the wooden shelves. He reached up and pulling out a fourth tray from the above her head. His fingers closed around a thin strip of brown, before pushing the tray back with one hand. "This is where Slughorn keeps brown filter paper."

"Why did you pull me up?" She rasped.

That was all she had to say? He deadpanned. "You were making a mess on the floor."

Enraged by his statement, Hermione snapped. "I was looking for..."

"...for something you weren't going to find until miraculously, it fell from the heavens into your lap!" He stated in a cold fury. Theo handed her the paper. "Take it." He said forcefully.

Soundlessly, her fingers grappled for the paper, drawing it bit by bit from between his clamped fingers, with as much strength as she could muster. When the last inch of the slip was in her grasp. "Was I in your way?" She asked. "You could have just asked me to move rather than throw me up against the shelf rack." She almost looked vulnerable; fine boned and slender. He realised that he could snap her like a twig.

"I would have stepped on you Granger, if you were in my way."

"Then why didn't you?" She challenged. Gold flecked eyes blazed with indignation.

He shrugged. "You're a lot lighter than you look." He answered cryptically.

_Was this his way of apologising for using excessive strength and bruising her? _She noticed that he himself did not reach for a second slip of filter paper. She concluded, that she must not been in his way at all.

"Were you trying to help me? I don't understand. Why would you help me?" She sputtered, the filter paper clasped in a tight fist above her navel. Her navel was also rather uncomfortably being poked at by his belt buckle that was nestled rather snugly into the dip, carving deeper into her flesh with every breath he took. Did he realise, she wondered? The spine of the shelf rack, continued to protrude into her back, the dull pain spreading across both her shoulder blades. Straightening up was not an option, when he was looming over her.

He replied indifferently. "Who said anything about helping you? I gave you the filter paper that you were looking for, so you can now go on your way." He gestured pointedly towards the far door.

"That's not what I meant." She stated softly, almost apologetically. "I ruined your experiment but you helped me find this without me even asking. It doesn't make sense."

There was that word again 'help.' The muscles began to tighten in his face. His jaw was clenched at the memory of how she ruined his experiment. "Don't try to understand a slytherin with gryffindor logic."

"Then tell me why you helped me?"

"I didn't." He countered with a second question, masking his unease at the answer to her previous question. "Tell me why you ruined my experiment."

She bit her lower lip, daring not to meet that piercing gaze. She herself did not know or rather did not want to admit the numerous conclusions she had reached through extensive self-enquiry. "How far along are you with the potion?"

He let her evade his question. Her guilt was obvious, and clearly a weakness he could exploit as back up if he required, so he let it pass. "We'll finish it before the lesson ends."

"Then why don't you go?" She asked, frightfully conscious that both Parvati and Lavender might need the filter paper any minute.

"I would not leave myself so open to your wand, Granger. I'd let you walk away first." _Then hex you in the back._

Her breath skittered. "Are you telling me to watch my back from yourself?"

He stated dispassionately. "Nothing's changed."

She felt like she had been gutted. He was still out for blood. Her blood. If nothing had changed, then why would he have helped her find the filter paper?

"It doesn't add up at all. You just gave me ..."

He cut in, silencing her mid-torrent. "You're thinking like a Gryffindor again."

"I'm not a slytherin." she stated emphatically. "I don't want to fight you." The sentence was uttered before she could stop herself. It sounded so pathetic even to her own ears.

The malicious gleam that entered his eyes told her he had found it equally pathetic. "Too late for that. You crossed me already this lesson...in a most slytherin fashion." He added with relish. A menacing leer now graced those aristocratic features. The smile was ugly and his eyes were ugly. Hermione wanted to vomit.

Her left hand fisted. "Then finish it now! Or is that what you came here to do?"

Taking a steadying breath, he drew himself up to his full towering height. He explained. "I came to see for myself how upset you were; to see whether I _needed_ to follow through on my earlier promise to you."

"And if I _was_ upset over the cauldron..." She dared for him to continue.

"If you were truly crushed and sobbing, I would have left you quietly and let things follow through to their _natural conclusion_." That meant he wouldn't have pursued any course of revenge against her if she had been crying her eyes out and feeling miserable, because then his work would have already done for him.

Her blood boiled at his casual remark. "So that's why you helped me find the filter paper! You wanted to see how upset I was. You thought you would show me a little kindness and then watch whether I grovelled at your feet in undying gratitude, sobbing like a damsel in distress, who had until then been on her knees and defeated by the world. Then you would decide what to do with me. You are sick and twisted, Nott!"

"That's what I said, Granger." Somehow the remarks she furiously spat at him seemed to rouse him. His eyes were wild, dancing and flickering in the half-light. "Don't worry - I can still detect some backbone in you, which tells me, Granger that you're more than capable of bracing a few body blows."

She retorted. "Then hit me! I'm still waiting for those blows, Nott!" She snapped with impatience. Hermione Granger had had shocks in her life but she would never be made to feel intimidated over a length of time. If he was going to seek revenge, then let him have it now while she was here cornered, than let her keep guessing when he would strike. When Theo did not respond, Hermione snarled, straightening her spine, bringing her face level with his till they were nose to nose. She continued defiantly. "You are all talk! Why don't you follow through? I'm here at your mercy...so do what you have to!"

His back teeth ground in barely suppressed rage. "_You are here at my mercy?_ One would think I was holding you prisoner. Feel free to walk away, Granger." He gestured with his free hand towards the ajar door.

She knew she could not at all counts, leave first. She would have to protect her back against him and not leave herself open to his attack.

"You don't want to go?" He taunted.

"Well, I'm not leaving until after you do!" She hissed.

"You're learning fast, spitfire."

She puffed her chest out, not caring at the fleeting contact she had with his. "That's right I am, but you don't know what to do with me Nott."

"Why would you say that?" His voice dropped dangerously.

She explained, rising to her own full height, invading the space that between them."You're normally so in control of yourself. Every word and move has been deliberated and calculated ten times over. All your actions are decisive but you haven't done anything yet!"

Theo sneered, knocking her shoulders with his, crowding her till there was no air between them left to breathe. "Maybe I'm making you wait, because we all know how you don't like waiting."

"I doubt it." She said. "You been trying to intimidate me and threaten me with your words but your body language has been all over the place."

"How so?

She smiled. "You're still holding my hand." She gestured to her right hand...and his left hand.

To say he was stunned was the understatement of a century. And before he could rein his most extreme reaction to date, and let go, Hermione deadpanned triumphantly. "We've been holding hands for the last seven minutes, Nott."

* * *

><p>If Theodore Nott thought he was angry, then Blaise Zabini was fuming. Steam was literally coming out of the slytherin's ears as Nott sat back down on their work bench.<p>

"Where were you?"

Nott glared at him for a few seconds before surprisingly offering an answer. "In the store room."

Zabini furrowed his brows. "For the last ten minutes?" His suspicions were aroused as a ruffled Hermione Granger (looking a lost bedraggled kitten) made a speedy exit from the potions store room. "Were you with Granger?"

"Does it matter?" Theo turned, presenting Blaise with his back.

"I've just been heckled by Lavender Brown as to what I said that made Granger cry."

Theo replied flippantly. "Tell Brown to fuck off."

Blaise straightened immediately at Theo's use of the f-word. Blaise, Pansy , Crabbe and Goyle used swear words generously in conversation but for some reason the pureblood elites like Malfoy, Nott and several of the Black family, and the Gaunt family, always refrained from using such derogations. Blaise _knew_ something had happened between Nott and Granger. "What did you do to her?" He nudged his chair in closer to peer over Nott's shoulder.

Theo changed the subject. "You have a handkerchief on you? A clean one?"

"Of course. Do you need it now?" Blaise reached into the inner breast pocket of his robes and drew out a white linen kerchief.

"Thanks." He offered in brief explanation. "There were no hand towels by the wash basin in the store room."

A curious Blaise watched as Theo diligently dried his hands, between the fingers, around the thumbs, over the nails as well the around the wrist, and the back of the hand. For two whole minutes, Nott was silent, carefully removing all traces of invisible dirt from his hands.

"Did you spill something?" Zabini asked, now very curious as to what happened inside the store room.

"No." He said in a tone that spelt finality. That was all Theo would say. "I'll have this washed and returned to you by tomorrow." He said.

"Malfoy's already put our potion on the trays in the glass cabinet." Blaise informed Nott, who still seemed rather preoccupied with his thoughts. If the direction of Nott's glower provided any indication; his attention was focused on the three Gryffindor girls taking tiny baby steps towards the glass cabinet. Granger was in the middle of the trio holding a tray on which a rack containing five test tubes was balanced precariously.

* * *

><p>"Careful, Hermione. Try not to disturb the potion."<p>

A flustered Hermione replied. "I'm trying not to, Parvati." Her cheeks were flushed, splashed with vibrant red and her hands were already clammy. She looked at the distance left to walk to the glass cabinet and groaned.

"Whatever you do Hermione, don't tip it." Lavender said. "It's nasty stuff." She sucked a small burn on her finger.

"Yeah, I get the point." Hermione said, willing her hands not to tremble, in the white-knuckled grip she had on the tray. The last thing she wanted was to drop it. Her pulse kicked.

"Slowly, take it slowly." Parvati encouraged.

"Why do I have to be the one holding the tray?"

Lavender replied promptly. "Parvati and I agreed that you have the steadiest hands."

Hermione laughed. "Really? That's news to me."

"Keep going. You're doing fine."

Hermione giggled. "Parvati, you're making me sound like I'm in labour."

The girls tittered. Lavender joked. "Keep pushing, Hermione. Nearly there."

Hermione turned her whole body sideways to glare at Lavender. "Enough."

Her tray containing the potion samples was now in Theodore Nott's line of sight. His grip on the embroidered kerchief tightened and his brow furrowed in concentration. Whatever Blaise Zabini was saying to him, was lost in the general hustle and activity of a noisy classroom. Theo's wand was placed on the bench in front of him. No one would suspect. Calmly he recited the incantation in his mind. The spell was uttered.

Then to his horror, Granger turned sharply back to face the glass cabinet.

* * *

><p>"What was that sound?" Parvati said sharply. "Did you hear it Lav?"<p>

Lav straightened. "Yeah." She spun round, trying to check the back of her jumper.

The girls fell silent. The silence was broken by the gradual ripping, tearing and fraying of fabric.

** "Oh my God! Hermione. Your skirt!"** Parvati screamed.

The back of her skirt was completely open and flapping like bat wings.

Hermione screamed!

"Don't drop it." Parvati sprang forwards like a jack in the box to support Hermione's hold on the tray while Lavender ran behind Hermione to block the view.

A thousand thoughts raced through Hermione's head. This was impossible, unreal, unfair and of course...this had to be happening to her. She was jolted back into reality when one of the test tubes clinked against the other. The samples in both started fizzling, then fizzing. Hermione's eyes widened with growing dread. The liquids started bubbling from the very bottom of the glass to the very top, and then began to overflow onto the tray. This was bad. Pale pink concentrated liquid swamped the tray, and now began to dissolve the wooden test tube rack itself. Hermione whimpered. Oh, crap. Oh, hell. She watched the three test tubes quake and then topple over onto the tray. Hermione Granger had to act fast. Fortunately Lavender was holding the back of her skirt/ wrap together.

"Lav?"

"yeah, Hun?" Her friend responded.

"Run with me." Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Where was she running to? The glass cabinet of course.

Parvati leapt in front, clearing the queue of students waiting to shelve their own potions. Hermione charged forwards with the rapidly dissolving tray and Lavender bringing up the rear. Hermione's rear. Like a battering ram, the three girls tore through the queue to the glass cabinet. Parvati stepped aside allowing Hermione to throw the remnants of the tray onto the nearest available shelf before the liquid engulfed her hands. They backed away, breathing heavily. The ordeal was not over by a long shot. The glass cabinet started rumbling, rocking back and forth. Lavender gasped. One by one, the shelves collapsed. Vials of samples fell on more samples, consequently. Crash. Smash. Crash. Smash. Crash. Smash. Until finally all twelve shelves were lying as a mound of powdered glass within the cabinet and the 60 seeping samples of potions were a frothy, seething mixture that coated the insides of the remaining intact cabinet. It all happened so fast.

**BANG!**

Next, the wall behind the glass cabinet had blown. Professor Slughorn broadsheet newspaper was flung across the room, wrenched from his hands. His coffee mug slipped of his table, as the violent explosion shook the entire classroom. Ron and Neville clung to their desks. Harry took shelter underneath. Pansy, Daphne and Tracey had fled to the store cupboard. Theodore and Blaise stood frozen to the spot.

Entire chunks of rock and brick had tore out of the wall, and came crashing down, rolling like thunder. Lavender squealed, pulling the other two girls back and out of harm's way. Thick puffs of smoke and dust rose, enveloping them all. Parvati coughed, waving her arms to clear the air. Hermione gaped at the extent of the damage. She could actually _see_ into the next classroom. Professor Snape who was standing by the blackboard explaining the brewing of amortensia to the Ravenclaws and hufflepuffs, jerked to a shuddering halt. He put down the piece of chalk, staring back at Hermione through the hole in the wall. Words would not come. Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, taking two steadying breaths. The Gryffindors and slytherins behind her were in just as much shock. Slughorn looked ready to pass out. At the centre of all the destruction, Hermione Jean Granger stood, staring open mouthed at everything else, _in her underwear_. Lavender Brown was crouched behind her, holding a scrap of tartan like material, wondering how to explain to her dear friend that in the midst of all the commotion, she'd forgotten to hold onto Hermione's ripped skirt.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Continued from the italics at the bottom of the previous chapter.<strong>_

_Fred and George reread the scrawly handwriting on the detention slip. "Hermione Granger, you've outdone us. That's all I'm saying."_

_George read the form aloud. _

_" **Repeated Disruption to the lesson, **_

_**Damage to departmental property, **_

_**General irresponsibilty, **_

_**Vandalism**." He stopped to take a breath. "**Obvious Disrepect to the school uniform poilcy, **_

_**Public Indecency, **_

_**Structural Damage **_

_**and ...and...Denial of any Involvement."**_

_Fred gawked at her. "Denail of self-involvement - what in the world did you say to Slughorn?"_

_She squirmed uncomfortably. "It wasn't me?"_

_George laughed. "I think my favourite line is 'structural damage.'_

_"Mine is public indecency." Fred responded. "But I can't believe Slughorn actually had to add 5 more lines to the detention slip to write all your charges down."_

_George swung an arm over his brother. "So Miss Granger, are you going to remain a lone operative or would like to join us as partners in crime?"_

_Hermione nearly burst into tears. Lavender tried comforting her. "I'm so sorry hun about earlier. You know? The skirt" She tried to achieve some eye contact with her distraught friend. " I'm so sorry - you took off like a rocket! I just couldn't keep up with you."_

_Hermione cried harder into Harry's shoulder. He consoled."There. There." _


	7. Pride, Scars and Mementos

**A/N: I have an update! Sorry for the delay. Not as many laughs in this chapter. It follows on a few hours after the potions incident and before the quidditch game. **

**Reviewers have left some really motivational comments for chapt 6 which i wanted to thank them for; iva, saru, MAC, screamaahh, slytherin-swag, lilibot, mrs theodore nott ( who needs to change her name - that position has already been filled lol!), snow-middy and monnbeam. The interest this fic has generated has been surprising, and really encouraging for me. Thank you to all readers, reviewers and subscribers. **

**The next chapter, as the excerpt at the bottom suggests, is going to be a light-hearted and jovial read. Enjoy...much love NV.**

* * *

><p><strong><span>Gryffindor Common Room<span>**

They had twenty minutes to make their way to the quidditch pitch and she was not budging. Harry groaned loudly. With great help from Parvati and Lavender, the solid and stubborn wall that was Hermione Jean Granger had been moved from her bed in the girls dormitories and into the common room. Now that she was in the common room, Parvati and Lavender had gestured to Harry she was now his problem. She stood rooted to the spot, arms folded over her chest and looking truly uncooperative.

Harry, having run out of ideas and desperate not to be late for his own match, had taken to prodding her forwards with his firebolt. This approach was not having any conclusive results besides angering the female further. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Scratch that - Hell had nothing on Hermione Granger.

"I am not going." She hissed through clenched teeth.

Harry was persistent if anything. "We discussed this."

"No!" She corrected. "You and Ron discussed and you're dragging me along to humiliate me further. How could you want to do this to me?" Her tone was accusatory and the expression in her face was one of hurt.

It's just emotional blackmail, Harry kept reminding himself.

Her shoulders slumped forwards. "There's no way I can show my face in front of the school after that fiasco in potions. No way!"

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose, frustrated by his inability to understand the female species in general. "What about dinner in the great hall? Are you going to miss that too?"

"Yes!" She hollered.

His eyebrows shot skywards. "Stop overreacting. Just chill out a bit."

She raged."Over reacting? How is it over reacting, Harry? Did you ever flash your underwear in the classroom? Do you know how degrading the experience is? How will people ever take me seriously?"

Harry had his hands stuffed in his pockets and was rocking back and forth uncomfortably, acutely aware of the time and his lack of progress with his dearest friend. "You do know that you're just drawing more attention to yourself if you go into hiding. Just face everyone head on, once and they won't bother you again. In fact, you're lucky we have a match on today."

She replied scathingly. "That's really lucky; I get to be confronted by everyone in the school, all at once!"

This was not working. Harry reached for her arm and tried pulling her to the portrait.

She swatted his hand away. "Don't even think of trying."

He feigned ignorance. "Trying what?"

She snapped. "Trying to use your superior strength on me! I'll hex you all the way to King's Cross."

He laughed good naturedly. "I know you're embarrassed right now but I know you follow my flawless logic about facing the problem head on." He cocked his head sideways, holding her faltering gaze with his steady direct one. The tactic was clever. He was forcing her to judge the situation dispassionately with cool and dependable logic. At the same time, he was urging her to disregard the emotions that were throwing her off-balance. Minutes passed, while Hermione carefully considered her options.

Eventually, she huffed vocally as she readjusted her scarf and checked her pockets for her woolly mittens. Harry's face cracked soundlessly into a triumphant smile. The braid that she had tamed her hair into, was stuffed vigorously down the back of her muggle jacket.

Harry raised his eyebrows, unconsciously. For someone who would prefer anonymity in the crowd, the jacket was hardly inconspicuous.

"I know what you're thinking." She glowered.

He shook his head, smiling to himself. "Well as long you know." He gestured to the portrait entrance. "Are you ready?"

She nodded decisively as a trooper would though her eyes still looked a little moist from earlier this morning.

Ron was waiting outside for them, wearing a mountain of protective gear, and enjoying light banter with Seamus. He saw them both. "Finally! You took your time, Harry."

Harry gestured meaningfully to the girl by his side.

Seamus smothered a laugh before patted Ron on the back. "Well good luck boys with the match. Don't even think of coming back to the tower if you don't win."

Hermione smiled frostily in Harry's direction. "No pressure, Potter."

He replied promptly. "Ron, I still happen to be wearing my trousers, right?" He fixed her with a wicked grin and the half-smile had dropped from her own face, replaced by a furious expression. Ouch.

Ron threw his head back and guffawed like a hyena.

Her nostrils flared. Something about fury, hell and women of scorn came to Harry's mind.

"I'm glad to see you've retained your sense of humour, Ronald. You were feeling rather stressed this morning."

Ron clutched his sides, rolling with laughter. "Nah, I'm loads better. "Don't know what happened though. But you know what? I just realised you've got to be grateful for what you've got because some people are just worse off."

Hermione bristled. "Please enlighten us, Ron; where did you draw that conclusion from?"

Harry sniggered. "Possibly, potions?"

The boys broke out into raucous laughter that echoed off the sides off the stone walls. The stream of red-clad Gryffindors that poured out of the common room halted briefly, wondering what the commotion was about. Even first years were looking at Hermione with an undisguised interest, before tittering and whispering to their friends. _That's her. That's the girl I was telling you about. _

Someone bumped into her from behind. "oh, I'm so sorry!" A fifth year with acne ridden and gangly limbs apologised, but straightened up as soon as he realised who he had bumped into. "Er..." His positively drooling glance flitted from her face to her hips.

Hermione had had enough. "I'm going back!"

"Wait!" Harry called out.

She tried to sidestep Ron, narrowly avoiding Harry's muscled bicep as it swooped like a hawk trying to seize her own. Hermione Granger was no quidditch player but she was fast when she needed to be.

"Hermione!" Harry called exasperatedly after her, "Come back!"

She had already squeezed past them both, through a group of excited second years, bundling herself back into the common room seating area and vaulting up the stairs to the girls dorms.

Harry smacked his palm against his forehead with a resounding clap.

Ron, preoccupied attacking the hardening skin on his fingers, asked. "Have you got a plan, mate? Because the match starts soon."

Harry sighed. "Do you honestly think she is going to come?"

"If you send the right person to tell her to come, she will." Ron quipped.

"You mean Ginny? Neville? Dean?" Harry started listing names, growing increasingly perplexed as Ron shook his head for each one.

"Well who?"

"I don't know!"

"Then why did you suggest the idea in the first place!" The Boy who lived raked his fingers through his messy hair subconsciously, trying to think of someone suitable. Then it dawned on him. If Hermione could not be persuaded to leave her little hidey hole, he would have to flush her out of there. In order to do so, he would have to send someone she despised in.

He whispered the individual's name into Ron's ear.

"You are joking!" Ron enunciated each and every syllable. "That is bloody brilliant, Harry! I'd give 100 galleons to see this."

"We haven't got the time." Harry quipped. "But yeah, it would have been funny. In fact, this tops quidditch altogether."

"You do know that she _hates_ his guts." Ron asked.

Harry feigned ignorance. "I know they've had a few minor disagreements but surely it's not that bad. I'm sure they have the maturity to work things out between them and make amends."

Ron's face turned serious. "Harry, how is he going to get past the wards on the staircase?" It was common knowledge that if a Gryffindor boy ever tried gaining access to the girls dorms the stairs would automatically turn into a slide.

"We'll have to feed him some valuable information, won't we?"

"You're a dead man." Ron stated with a barely suppressed grin on his face.

Harry smiled. "Some secrets are too good to be kept. It's like..." He paused for words.

Ron offered. "Sharing the love?"

"Yeah, like that."

"Speak of the Devil! He's over there.?"Ron slipped an arm over Harry's shoulder in a brotherly fashion, pointing.

Harry shouted across the room at the seventh year currently arranging his golden tresses in the mirror above the crackling fireplace. "Oi! Mclaggen" A taller than average, well built young man with a prettier face than Cedric Diggory responded. Cormac Mclaggen, irritated at the interruption, pouted, before putting down his comb on the fireplace mantel piece and turned slowly on his Armani leather heel. "What can I do for you, Potter?"

Ron smirked. "Besides Granger."

* * *

><p>Hermione shrugged out of her jacket, before proceeding to hang it up. She kicked off her dark Ugg boots, threw her scarf, hat and gloves on the bed. She was muttering furiously, cursing her 'friends' three ways to Hell and back. Probably not back. She took a brush from her bedside table and began hacking at her tight braid, even before she had removed the hair tie and separated the strands. Her hair was a frizz bomb anyway, and savagely removing a few strands in this way was hardly going to affect the overall thickness, she reasoned. Her mum on the other hand, would have had a coronary and insisted that Hermione brushed her hair the right way. She slumped on the bed, sitting cross legged before pulling out a pocket journal and a quill. Parvati and Lavender had tried breaking into it but the wards and curses that Hermione had placed on the article were airtight. Her diary was open only to her. She flicked through the pages carelessly, eyes roving vacantly over the words.<p>

Someone harrumphed behind her. She nearly fell off the bed when she saw who it was. "Mm...Mclaggen?"

He flicked his wavy fringe out of his eyes, before applying a smile reserved just for the ladies. "In the flesh." He said breathily.

Hermione tried pinching herself. And she thought things could not get any worse. She snapped the diary close and tried to rearrange the gloves, scarf and hat into neat piles on her bed. Not wanting to give him any advantage over her, she stood up and faced him from the other side of the bed. "What are you doing here?" She growled.

"I came to see you, of course." He replied smoothly. "You weren't in the common room and I thought I would find you here."

"No kidding." Hermione said sarcastically, gazing at the door sign which read girl's dormitories.

"Granger..." He moistened those thin lips slowly, his eyelids at half mast.

She fixed him with a cold glare that saw through all pretences. "Yes Mclaggen?"

"I _love_ bed-hair."

Fantastic. Absolutely great. She said stiffly. "Thank you."

Hermione was furious. NO, beyond furious. That Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley deserved to be hung, cut and quartered! She stuffed her kitten heels on her feet, determined not to go the match, not to spend time with Mclaggen and determined to lead him on a wild goose chase around the castle. In kitten heels? She questioned the absurdity of her choice in footwear. He's be kissing her dust regardless! She had told him she would be meeting him at the library in ten minutes, which gave her a ten minutes head start to find a second sanctuary within the school grounds. She would have to go somewhere he would least expect to search. The question was where? It clicked. The school grounds of course. It needed to be some place secluded; away from the quidditch pitch of course but without straying into the dark forest. Perhaps she could walk along the lake. Correct that - she would have to run. Hermione only had ten minutes. Knowing Mclaggen, he would look in empty classrooms for her and maybe even try the Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw common rooms. Maybe after half an hour outside- throwing him off her scent completely, she could make her way back to the common room. Yes it was a plan, haphazard but still realistic. She paused considering whether or not to take her hat, gloves, coat, and scarf. She decided no. She would be back in half an hour and they would only weigh her down.

* * *

><p>Theo had been walking for just under two hours, with his head down sucking all the warmth from his scarf and his fists plunged deep into his trouser pockets. Twigs crunched underfoot. He stooped, narrowly avoiding a low branch at the last minute before continuing to walk at the gruelling pace his body demanded. These walks in the Forbidden forest were common. The biting cold, the smell of damp and the faint odour of decay, the eerie graveyard silence helped clear his mind and unbundle his thoughts. He had never been confronted by a member of staff, prefect, ghost or Filch, although once in fourth year, McGonagall had stopped him to ask him where he was going on an icy Christmas morning. Most students were in their dorms sleeping or eagerly opening presents. He blanked, struggling to give a convincing answer, explaining why he had left his peers in the common room. Theo stammered but replied truthfully that it was routine for him to take long solitary walks on the weekends.<p>

There had been a brief but sympathetic look in her eyes. "Merry Christmas, Nott."

She had been the only person in four years at Hogwarts to ever wish him that. Wordlessly, the professor let him pass.

This walk was different, but for some frustratingly unknown reason it reminded him of the fourth year Christmas hike. He had left it to Blaise to think of a shoddy excuse to feed Professor Binns, besides truanting. He frowned deeply at the word truanting but unfortunately that was exactly what he was doing and Nott was not proud of it. However, his mind was simply not focused. Theo rammed his hands deeper into his pockets, fisting them and uncurling them repeatedly till he thought his knuckles would give out. His short and neatly cut nails had left red and telling marks in his palm. His hands burned. Burned from the warmth of his pockets, burned from rough treatment he dealt them, burned from holding Granger.

He coughed, trying to expel all the traitorous thoughts that weren't his own; waves of righteous indignation rolled through him, sudden explosions of anger, fear and the tingling awareness of having another body pressed close and curved into yours. The pressure on his skull was building to unmanageable levels. He had thought two hours would have been enough to clear his mind. He still felt edgy, nervy and _volatile_. Theo ploughed on.

His sleeve caught on a second branch and as he stopped to remove and other thought came unbidden to his mind. The handkerchief – Blaise would not want it back if he knew what it had been used for. Perhaps should dispose of it while he could in the forbidden forest. It hung like a church bell from his breast pocket, strangling, suffocating and weighty.

* * *

><p><strong><span>By the Great Lake<span>**

It was starting to rain; a constant pitter patter that pin pricked the surface of the great lake in their thousands. A damp grass smell pervaded her nostrils and she craned her head forwards taking the heady outdoor's scent deep into her lungs. Above her greying cotton wool clouds were rolling in. She must have been walking for over twenty minutes but had made no move to turn back. Her kitten heels were mud stained and totally inadequate for the walk but for once, Hermione didn't care. She did not care at all. She threw her head back, tossing her hair over her shoulder and ran as giddy as a truanting schoolgirl through the long grass and reeds. She stumbled once or twice but regained her footing, not bothering to check how badly her knees had been scraped or how muddy her hands were, which she carelessly wiped on her skirt.

She could hear in the distance the thunderous applause from the ongoing match, shouts, and Lee Jordon's animated commentary.

"Bell passes the Quaffle... swerves to avoid the bludger...Intercepted by Bletchley...Handed back to Montague...Malfoy takes a nosedive...Potter follows suite...Malfoy's closing in on the snitch...Will he make it..." And Hermione closed hers to the sound, revelling in the quiet moment she had here, feeling insignificant, pocket-sized and totally free to the elements. The wind was harrowing. A salvo of raindrops nipped and pinched her skin till they were red and raw. She fisted her hands and tried to breathe some warmth into them. Slowly, the curls were dropping out of her hair, sagging under the weight of the unshed raindrops that sought sanctuary in her mouse brown corkscrews. She sat on the largest and closest mossy boulder on her side of the bank, pulling her knees up and tucking them under chin. A few hours ago, she had lost her skirt, her good girl reputation and prefect recommendation. She must have looked a sight even now but here, there was no one to see her. Hermione was happy in simply _being_; lost in that moment that was endless, limitless and tranquil. She was so absorbed in this state; she failed to notice the intruder emerging from out of the shady undergrowth of the Black Forest behind her.

"Granger?"

She turned at the unexpected call and her eyes widened. Time stood still. He stood still. The only sound was the relentless drumming of raindrops on the saturated ground. They watched, taking in the other for several slow heartbeats. He was wrapped like a blanket, covered from head to toe. His mouth and nose was muzzled by a thick woolly scarf and his chestnut tresses peeped out like an errant child the black hat that was clamped over his ears. His feet donned sturdy walking boots, and his broad shoulders which tapered to a spindly waist filled out the dark windbreaker he was wearing. She jolted back to the present when he cocked his head imperceptibly to the side registering her state of ... undress.

"Granger?" His deep vibrating baritone rumbled through her, jerking her awake a second time. "Did you hear what I said?" He asked icily. Granger was out on a cold afternoon/ early evening in her school skirt (yes, she was wearing that this time) and a school shirt and socks. Her fragile blue fingers were clasped around the shirt sleeves of each respective arm. "You are not watching the game."

"No." She said, having finally found her voice. Theo noted how strained and frosty the tone was. "Neither are you,"

"I don't enjoy quidditch." He said simply.

"Me neither." She admitted, truthfully.

Evidently, Granger was not in the mood for showing her friends moral support. Interesting. He pursed his lips, giving a perfunctory nod. The conversation was over before it had even begun. He moved to walk around her and back to the castle.

When he was five paces away, she called out. "Aren't you going to apologise for what happened in potions?"

He stopped midstride, taking a breath to centre himself for the oncoming tirade. "What happened in potions?"

"What happened indeed?" She stated ominously. He noted how Granger's voice had acquired an aggressive edge... a biting fury barely kept leashed. The undercurrents of deep-rooted shame bubbled to the surface as waves of confusion, fear and anger. She was itching for a fight and the only way she would instigate a fight was to provoke him. He understood that line of logic. Theo judged that in order to make a swift exit, he would have to passively diffuse the situation by verbally appeasing her and not being tempted to rise to the glittering challenge she promised. That would involve restraint.

A sudden squall ripped through him, plundering his body heat. His nostrils pinched. He had been hiking in the forest for over two hours, and his hands were numb. It was unnecessary for Him to stay. "I think we're done here, Granger." Theo made a second move to leave.

She blurted out to his retreating back. "Your friend was out of line!" She did not even know if her words carried or if they were picked up and drowned by the wind.

He stilled, ears pricking. Did she mean Blaise? Did she actually think Blaise was the one who hexed her? He thought back to the event, nodding as he remembered each small detail. Theo's wand had been on the table but Blaise had been holding his in his right fist. Granger had been in his ling of sight and naturally Blaise who had been standing shoulder to shoulder with him would have been in her line of sight. His mood lifted a fraction. With fewer implications came fewer complications. He would quite comfortably let Blaise deal with the fall-out for this fiasco. He scuffed the ground with his boot before turning to regard her. "Do you mean Blaise?"

She spat. "Do you have any other friends?"

"Blaise is not a friend."

To her credit, she held her ground. Few would when Theodore Nott employed his most chilling stare. She threw her bedraggled rat-tailed locks over her shoulder. "I suppose snakes are solitary creatures but even you slytherins can find safety in numbers." _Even you._

"Safety in numbers?" The corner of his mouth twisted into a hard sneer. "Like sheep?" He began to scrape the dirt from the underside of his boot on a boulder. "Lions in the wild, stick together too, don't they? There is a muggle word for it..." His voice trailed off.

"Pride." She said automatically.

The way his eyes glinted back at her made her shiver. "Pride." He repeated. "There is enough of that to go round in Gryffindor."

He smirked at the open revulsion. "With regards to finding safety in numbers, we slytherins watch our own backs. There are too many targets pinned on each of us. Unlike the Gryffindors, we rarely find safety in greater numbers, only more liabilities."

"So you don't like to keep anyone close?"

He threw an assessing glance in her direction, attention briefly wavering removing from the mud on his boots. "I like the solitary existence...it's peaceful."

It puzzled her how when she asked a bold question intended to rattle him, instead of slamming her with a witty riposte in a reminder of his overall superiority, he offered explanations, albeit cryptic ones. She thought back to the discussion in the store room, his half hearted apology "_You're a lot lighter than you look." _

"Gryffindors are a unit." She explained, somewhat softening. "Like a family."

He was silent for a minute, eyes moving from the boulder and gazing pointedly at something ahead of him, deep within the haze of needle-prick rain drops that streatched out as far as the eye could see. The muscles tightened in his face. "Families are over-rated." He grounded out, eventually.

She recoiled at the blunt statement that had dropped like a bomb from his mouth, but Hermione knew better than to ask, this time. "That's..." She struggled to find an apt word. "Not fair."

"Hmm." He said distractedly.

He needed to leave fast before she drew him into steady and flowing conversation. Or rather a frenzied impassioned argument. Not because he did not have the energy to enter into a polemic with her but because he was all too willing. His weakness for a healthy heated debate was exposed in the store room and not just to Granger. He liked having controversial discussions (with Blaise.) He had never truly acknowledged that till this morning in potions. Blaise, a true slytherin, followed cool collected logic and brought up past indiscretions that opponents liked to keep buried, and always struck out at the most opportune moment. Granger was different; she was volatile. Blaise had contained power in his lithe frame which he drew on as and when necessary. She had a restless energy as crackling, arresting and expansive as a force field. Half the time, Granger did not know what she was doing. There was no waiting around, no cautious baiting, no play-on-words, just fire and ceaseless attack. For Theo, a recluse within his house and practically a nameless faceless entity to all other houses, arguing so openly for the sake of arguing was unchartered territory. And he never backed down from a challenge. Neither did she. What was that muggle word again? Yes...pride.

To his utmost surprise, Theodore Nott sat down on the boulder he had been cleaning his boots on. He even watched it happen like a near death experience. This bizarre action could _not_ be due to the burning desire to match wits with Granger. What are you playing at Nott? The surprise registered in Granger's face and the way her breath hitched in her throat. He recognised it for what it was – giving fate a free shot at him, knowing that Granger had more to say and that she deserved to be listened to. It was remorse? Was that the only reason he was hanging around? Theo groaned. Or was it guilt? Did it have anything to do with guilt?

Guilt was a foreign emotion to slytherins – well, that was what they liked to believe. He had never felt guilty about anything before, but then again he never did anything he regretted. To be guilty was to have a defeatist attitude to life, dwelling on an erroneous past in the present and wasting time in wishful thinking. As an emotion, it was disempowering. It was self-destructive and not conducive to survival. That was what his whole life had been about...survival. He would _not_ feel guilt. He forcibly swallowed, breaking the grip of the phantom that had seized and squeezed his windpipe, removing the constriction that had lodged in his throat.

"If you want me to apologise on behalf of Blaise..." He is a measured and too neutral a tone. It broke the silence inauspiciously, and Granger shoulders tightened beside him. "You've got the wrong person."

She flinched. "I'm not asking anything from you!" She denied. Her expression had become closed instantly. The empathy she had been so willing to extend to him a moment ago was long gone. That merely confirmed how fickle and empty a Gryffindors words were. Her voice cracked "And you don't have to wait here on my behalf. You..." There was a marked hesitation where she glared at the mud flakes he had been removing from his heel. "Must be cold." She finished.

He snarled reflexively. "Don't think for a minute that you have the _right_ to dismiss me, Granger."

She swung round to face him head on, eyes blazing. _Rights_ - that was pureblood speak. "I did not ask you to stay."

"I don't need your permission either way." He stated coldly.

She stood up, reaching shoulder-height. "Let's get this clear! I don't want any obligations on your part."

He raised his voice a fraction above that of normal speech, his vocal cords already straining. "Then what the hell do you want Granger? An apology?"

He was towering over her again, his hands planted on his waist, feet astride. In true Gryffindor colours, she was a lioness, with eyes of liquid amber, and wild riotous hair.

"You want an apology?" He barked.

"Am I asking for too much?" She screamed. "Isn't that why you're here?"

He swore loudly. "I'm not even allowed to walk in the bloody grounds in peace."

"You obviously have something to say which you haven't said yet! Otherwise you would have left as soon as you got the chance."

"Then I'll take my leave now, shall I!" Theo's shoulders swung round but stalled as he realised his mistake. With the words _'shall I'_ he had just asked her goddamn permission!

She hounded on him. "I am not finished talking, Nott!"

"Talk all you want Granger. I have places to be."

"Fuck this!"

Theo's eyebrows rose to his immaculate hairline at hearing the expletive from good-girl Granger.

Hermione stilled, as realisation dawned. "It was you, wasn't it? You hexed me in potions."

"I don't where the hell you got that idea from." He raked both his hand through his hair, wondering how the situation was unravelling so quickly!

She touched her lip briefly, astounded at arriving at her own logically sound conclusion. "But your wand..."

"My wand was on the table" He finished emphatically.

"That can't be right."She shook her head, as though trying to clear it.

"Exactly! So why lie to yourself!"

She closed her eyes, muttering. "So that means..."

He exhaled deeply, relieved that she was arriving at a very different conclusion now.

She smacked her palm against her forehead. "You didn't use your wand!"

**Fuck.**

Her eyes flew open. "Did you?" She drew herself up to her full height a lithe and graceful five eight.

"Blaise hexed you and I asked him to." Theo snapped.

She replied with absolute certainty. "He's not your friend though, so I doubt he lets you treat him like a sidekick."

A muscle bulged in the side of his jaw. "Let's not make assumptions that we will regret."

"The first assumption you made, Nott was treating like me a fool!" She was angry, spitting mad. "Did you have to rip my skirt open, really?"

His nostrils pinched then flared, his mouth compressed a hard flat slate. He pivoted away from her like a perfect gentleman.

"Well?"

He growled. "You're emotionally unstable, Granger. Talk to me when you've calmed down."

The last comment was a slap to the face. That's exactly how she responded.

* * *

><p>Theo thought he was hallucinating when his eyes noticed the outstretched palm that connected to Granger's shoulder swing towards him. The movement was decisive, controlled and so unlike of the normally erratic Granger. Her palm cracked along his cheek like a whip, spinning his face away her, her nails trailing slash marks over his nostrils. The impact sent him reeling. His left cheek burned like a fever, and the imprints of her fingers would forever remain as hot red angry welts that seared and scarred his face. He staggered back, his feet and his pride desperately trying to find a footing on the rain sodden grass. No person had ever hit his face. Ever.<p>

His gaze hardened.

"How did you do it?" She asked breathlessly, choking on her own words.

The resolute set of his jaw told her everything she needed to know. Theodore Nott was not going to answer.

"Was it wand less magic?"

His baritone voice rumbled. "You tell me, Granger." There was blood trickling onto his teeth. She bit her lower lip. He was not even moving to wipe it. He had not even cried out in pain, not even made a move for his wand. He looked...dazed. Surely she hadn't hit him that hard. She knew one thing, she had slapped Theodore Nott harder than she had fisted Malfoy, and Malfoy's punch had been a bludger of a right arm hook.

His eyes look glazed in their sockets, tilting to each side, alternately. Cautiously, she approached him as one would a wounded tiger. Her eyes widened, notching the contrast between his ivory skin and the red marks she had left. "I didn't mean to... "She stood on her tiptoes, leaning forwards without realising had tried to brush the marks away with one hand.

Theo did not catch that grappling hand as he did in the store room. He backed away in swift retreat. That was when Hermione Granger realised something was truly wrong.

Finally Nott let out a grunt of pain, turning his back to her as he did so. His vision was swimming. His ears were ringing. The only sound he could hear clearly was the rush of blood in his ears with every contraction of his heart. He took long laboured breaths, trying to fight the pain.

"Nott?" A female's voice quavered, with motherly concern.

He put out an arm behind him, stopping her advance.

"Are you okay?"

He put all his current energy into breathing, forcing his lungs to stay open and take in air and expel the waste gases. His rib cage felt strapped in an ever tightening straightjacket. Writhing under the pressure, its buckling structure threatened to collapse inwards. _Collect yourself_. A stern inner voice commanded. _Do it now!_

He just kept breathing with a single point focus on the soil-stained grass at his feet, arms braced on his hips and hunched over. Eventually the ragged laboured breaths became steady and ceaseless.

"Here, take this." A paper Kleenex tissue was shoved into his pocket.

The rough action registered in his brain which still felt like it was being sliced and stabbed with knives, He pulled it and flung it on the ground.

He heard Granger inhale sharply. He didn't give a damn. Theo in a semi-conscious state remembered he had a tissue in his left pocket. He needed to clean his face quickly. No self-respecting pureblood would be floored with one punch by a female muggleborn...besides him, he thought wryly. _Wipe your face. Look sharp._ This was damage control.

His fingers grappled with the zip on his windbreaker, into his inner breast pocket, closing on the soft fabric. He drew it out, lifting it to his mouth before jerking violently. This was the kerchief he had been meaning to discard. It had been the handkerchief he had cleaned his hands free of Granger's touch. He would be damned if a single pure drop of Nott blood fell on this accursed item, soaking the drop and tainting it beyond recognition. Blood was now oozing steadily out of his nose, and disappearing behind his scarf. He clamped the hanky in a closed fist, crushing it like a rag, feeling it brand his skin. He thrust it out behind him, startling Granger. "Take it."

"Wh...What?"

"Take it." He repeated. "It's yours." He risked taking a glance back at her, now that he looked a bloodied and battered mess.

Pathetically apologetic, Granger tried swallowing past a lump in her throat, looking pleadingly into Theo's bloodshot eyes. She made some sort of gargling unladylike sound.

Theo snarled with spiking impatience. "Take the damn kerchief!"

She half screamed. "It's not mine!"

He felt like screaming too. Wordlessly, he spun on his heel and stalked back to her. She was the one now backing up. He stuffed the tissue into her robes pocket.

"You need to clean your face." She whispered into his ear as he lowered her head, towards her.

He snapped sarcastically. "You don't say." Theo tried to keep his head low and buried in his scarf, away from Granger's concerned and prying gaze.

She jerked the handkerchief out of her pocket and presented it back to him. "Use it. For God's sake, use it. If you want me to look away, close my eyes, I will. Keep your pride intact Theo...I don't need it." She said in stilted, broken voice. "I'm sorry."

He looked away from her., too irritated for words.

"I shouldn't have hit you."

The last thing he wanted, when he was almost seeing double, was her sympathy. "Keep it as a gift." He snapped, referring to Blaise's kerchief. "Or as a memento." He paused, pressing the heel of his hand into a dent in his skull. "...Of the day you back-handed Theodore Nott."

She tried to catch his gaze. "I didn't back hand you and it wasn't like that at all. I was just angry."

. **"And humiliated! Infuriated! And shit like that! I know**!" He roared with absolute all-knowing certainty. "Granger, I know!" His knees buckled.

"Oh!" She sprang to aid him at the same time as he doubled up and backed away into a squat on the ground. "Are you ill, Nott?" Her doe brown eyes were wide with fear and concern was the last thing on Earth he wanted to see. "I'll go get Madame Pomffrey." She readied herself for a sprint to the castle.

"For Merlin's sake Granger, just stop!"

The strained note in his voice halted her. "I'm sorry."

"STOP SAYING THAT!" He clamped and forcibly swallowed down a gutful of coffee-flavoured bile. He had skipped lunch. If he hadn't he would have at least had something meaty to throw up like a man. "Just keep the kerchief. I don't want it. I don't need it. It's yours."

"Why?" Her face was a picture of innocence.

"Because..." Words were failing him. Blaise won't want it back. I certainly don't want it. I don't want the reminder of having held hands with you and not even realised a thing. The fact that when we held hands in the store cupboard, all I felt was peace. All these thoughts churned like vomit in his stomach. Something else altogether came spilling through his mouth.

Hermione looked as though she had been gutted. She took two steps away, his words reverberating in her ears. Her chest was heaving. Were those tears he spied tangled in her long lashes?

Theo heard his own words too, a second later.

** "It's dirty...like your blood is." **He held out the kerchief one last time. She knocked it from his hands and it fell in the mud by his feet.

She opened her mouth but she was holding back a dam of emotions that strangled her voice. She closed her mouth, pressing her lips together in a hard flat line. Granger sprinted. He watched her. She didn't stop at all the whole way to the castle. From his limited knowledge of the Gryffindor female, she would never be speaking to him again. Perhaps it was for the best. They were two individuals who did not click and caused each other unnecessary stress and grief.

He followed Granger back to the castle at a slower pace, emerging from the forest even more unsettled than he had been in the morning going into it. Theo winced just thinking about it. The only person in the world proud of him today would have been Malfoy.

* * *

><p><strong>Slytherin Common Room - 9pm<strong>

Slytherin lost.

The mood in the common room was sombre, though Theo knew that Blaise was inwardly rejoicing. The sixth year and seventh years boys pulled up chairs in a wide circle, passing a bottle of Malfoy's firewhisky round, collectively drowning their sorrows. Goyle sniffled into his sleeve. Malfoy was staring grimly into space, his lips pursed at the corners. Flint was counting and muttering curses under his breath at Katie Bell. Half of them had not changed out of their rain-soaked robes. At least boots were off; otherwise Filch would have had a coronary. Montague, Pucey and Bletchley fidgeted with their brooms in their laps. The only person on the Gryffindor team with a firebolt had been Potter. They had been flying against a team of Nimbus 2002's and Weasley twin voodoo twigs and still had managed to lose the game by sixty points. Oh the shame!

Finally the bottle was returned to Malfoy. He lifted it to his lips and took a generous swig. "Crabbe? Your first hex?"

Crabbe snatched the bottle from Malfoy, "Ginny Weasley. Bat Bogey Hex."

I was asking about the first hex you did and not the once you received, nitwit."

The boys bellowed laughter. It wasn't that funny. They just needed to laugh.

"Zabini – first kiss?"

Zabini replied smoothly, gulping the firewhisky without blinking. "Easy. I was five. I gave Pansy a peck on the cheek under the table at one of Malfoy's mother's events."

"Yeah Pansy was my first kiss too." Malfoy said rather pathetically.

"Your first everything." Marcus Flint mumbled. The boys joined him in a second round of raucous laughter.

The bottle was passed to Pucey who took his fill and then to Nott. Theo hesitated. He knew the effect that drink had on his father. It had destroyed all the respect he had for Nott Senior. He took a slow steady sip, the molten amber liquid burning its way down his throat to the pit of his stomach. Malfoy, who had been sipping firewhisky from a newly materialised second bottle, interrupted Pucey and asked giddily. "First time."

"Pardon?"

"First time." Malfoy slurred.

Theo knew exactly what Malfoy meant but he was momentarily stumped.

Montague wrenched the bottle from Theo's loose grasp. "The incident with Davis doesn't count." He swirled the liquid. "Somebody please take Malfoy to his room before he throws up in here."

"Well?" Zabini asked impatiently.

Montague smiled too broadly for Theo's taste. "Angelina Johnson."

All the boys straightened in their seats.

"When did this happen?" Blaise asked.

Montague shook his head like a celebrity, as the other boys excitedly pressed him for more details.

Theo shook his head. Montague was speaking of an event that had happened with Johnson in their early teens. It was not even legal at their age. They had fumbled their whole way through all the proceedings. It was almost laughable if his mind wasn't currently being assaulted with graphic images projected from Montague's own mind. Theo grimaced.

None of these boys had been 'initiated.' There had been no fumbling. His partner had made deliberated and calculated moves. In his mind he drifted back to the scene; the whips, the leather binders, the blood trails her nails had left in his back, her gentle false coaxing, and his writhing trapped under her emaciated form and the screams. His tortured screams echoed in his own ears. "Bella...Bella...stop!"

Nott reached for the firewhisky bottle from Montague and downed it straight.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Excerpt for chapt 8:<strong>_

_"Granger, are you drunk?" Theo asked, fearing the worst._

_She tried straightening her posture but her loosely hanging limbs failed, seeming as vacant and glassy as the expression in her eyes. "NOOOOoooo."_

_He snapped with growing impatience. "Then what are you doing - a gryffindor alone in the dungeons, trying to locate Snape's office?"_

_Her reaction was delayed by a good three seconds. "You can't see me, Theo."_

_What? _

_"I said I'm not here! You're not suppososed to see me!" She slurred, staggering backwards. _

_He caught her arm and propped her against the wall, conscious to minimise contact at all costs. Theo folded his arms across his chest. "Why is that, Granger?" Nearly forgiving her use of his first name. After all she was intoxicated to near unconsciousness._

_I'm wearing Harry's Invisibility cloak." She enunicated. She waggled her fingers in the air as if writing it all out for him._

_"Really?" Theo said flatly to her face. It wasn't a question._

_"Uh- huh." She nodded vigourously._

_"Then where is it?"_

_"Where is what?" _

_"The cloak." _

_"Are you stupid? That's a stupid question!" She rolled her eyes and smacked her forehead._

_ Now she was getting irritated? Theo tried to placate his fraying patience._

_"It's an invisibility cloak."_

_"I know what it is." He said emphatically._

_" I can't tell you where it is. It's invisible!" She began sliding down the wall, legs buckling beneath her._


	8. Reuining the Party Spirit edited

**A/N: My dear readers...I have been bad. The delay in updating this fic is inexcusable. I was just really busy with uni work. **

** chapter is unusual because it seems like a FILLER chapter, but actually introduces a lot of character development stuff that will be explored in later chapters, for Theo AND Hermione on issues such as blood purity, friendships, etc. Everything in the chapter is relevant!**

**2. As with the potions incident, i have not quite got round to getting Hermione drunk as yet. Sorry folks. it will happen :S**

**3. Theo is a bastard in this chapter- you have been warned. Let's just say it's because he's had a really bad day. Theo and Blaise share a room. Rooms are special privileges in Slytherin...as the Gryffindor girls are about to find out in the following chapter.**

**4. I absolutely adore Dawn French and just had to include the fat lady. **

** 5. Thank you all for our wonderful reviews. They motivate me to write like nothing else (sorry miss volturi /MAV for misspelling the name. I believe I gave thanks to MAC in the last chapter. I was obviously thinking of my foundation at the time.)**

**6. and finally Happy new year to you all xxx**

* * *

><p><strong>Slytherin Dorms - Blaise's Room<strong>

"I don't get you at all." Blaise lowered himself onto the carpet from his 100th press up.

Theodore Nott sat, resting his solid frame against the headboard of his single bed; long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles.

"That is a very intent look, Zabini. Are you making a study of me?"

Someone should, Blaise thought to himself. Twenty minutes ago, he had hauled a glassy-eyed Nott out of the common room, before his drunken altercation with Malfoy erupted into a bloodbath. Malfoy had accused Theo of finishing the whole bottle of firewhisky (which he had), as well as being a disagreeable fellow in general (which he was) and then dropped the T bomb that was sure to grate Nott's already shredded nerves. Blaise had watched proceedings with growing unease. Malfoy had been complaining about a recent failed conquest, threw blame at Nott's feet and then Nott _had_ to make a snarky comment about Malfoy's general incompetence as a person, and threw in some expletives for good measure about the Malfoy family. As for the T-word; it started with a T and then ended in 'Racey Davis.' And _she_ was Malfoy's failed conquest. Could Theo not have let that slide? Err...no.

"_She said she had abstained!" Malfoy bellowed. "Bloody abstained! Didn't want a physical relationship after that last horror!"_

_Flint and Bletchley had bolted upright in their seats when Malfoy told them, moaning like an impotent fool. _

_Montague nearly fell out of his seat. "She said what?" _

"_Say, that doesn't sound like her at all." Adrian Pucey said in a puzzled tone._

_Miles, Marcus and Montague tried calculating who exactly was the last horror and then glanced hopefully at Malfoy._

_Malfoy ignored them, continuing on his rant, wand arm flailing around. "She said No!" He swayed forwards in his seat. He roared. "She said no to ME! Fucking Nott!" His unfocused gaze fell on Nott, opposite him in the circle. "You bloody ruined her!" Malfoy stood up, his wand arm flicking forwards erratically. Although Nott looked as easily smashed, he responded in time. _

"_Gents let's not..." Blaise's voice was drowned in the barrage of hexes that went flying and ricocheting off the walls. _

_The others had ducked in the brace position beside their chairs, yelling for the two wizards to stop. Which they did, after Zabini bulldozed into Nott, tackling him onto the floor and proceeded to lug him with the aid of Flint up to the dormitories and a yelping and struggling Malfoy had been pinned to the floor by Crabbe and Goyle._

_Nott had not been easy to haul. He had thrown his full weight against Flint and Zabini, with a white knuckled grip on his wand. Blaise thought wryly, a struggling Theodore Nott would make a female erotic fantasy favourite – because it did not happen often, if ever. Pansy would be kicking herself for missing this. Blaise had forced that wand arm down and almost wrenched Nott's wand from him. It had a most sobering effect. Theo had visibly paled, pulled the wand back, and staggered up the stairs unaided. _

"_I'm going to my room." Blaise had then announced to the rest of the boys, now that the party spirit was well and truly doused. He followed after Nott. It had nothing to do with checking on his roommate. _

* * *

><p>"What happened?" Blaise asked outrightly.<p>

Theo turned over a leaf in his notes, setting it aside for later perusal. His lips were pursed in concentration. He glanced over the top of his transfiguration notes, left brow crinkled. Blaise could read his micro-expressions well enough to state that his roommate was growing annoyed at the needless disruptions."What makes you think something happened?"

_Talk about fucking denial! I was there you, prat!_

Theo shrugged his shoulders gracefully, eyes immediately narrowing on the parchment. _How odd? _ The scratching of his quill broke the silence, as he crossed out and corrected the glaring mistake.

Zabini moved to sit cross-legged on the floor. "How the hell can you be doing that?"

Blaise took a moment to study his roommate's face. No, the emotionless mask was rigidly tight as always. Blaise went through his mental checklist. Nott's gaze was steady. His stance was deceptively relaxed. His sentences were coherent. His movements were precise and coordinated. He was obviously still able to process information. So how the hell wasn't he still drunk?

Theo lowered his notes slowly into his lap, curling his lower lip in displeasure at Blaise's constant interruptions. "Zabini will you have me parrot your every sentence till I unearth what it is you are trying to ask?"

Blaise pointed out his observation." I swear you were drunk twenty minutes ago."

Apparently that was not what Nott wanted to hear. "Correction Zabini." The slytherin said icily. "Twenty minutes ago, I had been drinking."

"And you expect me to believe that you can sober that quickly?"

"You can believe what you want. Your expectations are based entirely on your own experiences."

"You nearly killed Malfoy." Blaise replied hotly. "Some of the spells you used were bloody illegal. Some of them I hadn't even heard of – like sectumsempra!"

Theo didn't answer, tapping the parchment with his quill. "I'll need to clarify this point with McGonagall on Monday." he said to himself.

"Are you even listening to me?" Blaise growled.

Theo raised his chin, but his eyes never left the page. Apparently he found his transfiguration notes more interesting. Blaise tried counting to ten in his head – a favourite anger management technique. He waited for Nott to say something, just about anything. If he had any hope it was dashed as the minutes stretched on between them. Eventually Zabini cursed loudly and snapped. "I don't know why I bothered!"

"Hmm?" Theo said distractedly, turning over a sheet.

"I should have left you in the common room like a blathering idiot." Blaise said heatedly. "Malfoy and his minions would have knocked some sense in you."

"Yes, Theo agreed, as he rolled over onto his side to reach for his butterbeer flask on the bedside table. "Next time don't bother." His voice was flat and devoid of care.

Blaise could not figure out whether Nott was being serious or whether he was joking. He rose onto his knees. "What did you say?" Maybe his voice betrayed him. Maybe there was that raw quality to his tone like scraped broken skin that indicated how on edge he felt. Maybe it was because he mistakenly thought Nott would have enough backbone to show him some gratitude. He fumed. "Do you want to know why I did it? Do you?" He was past care that his voice was raised, and that his roommate had no respect for impassioned outbursts. "Do you know why I pulled you out while you were firing hexes at Draco?"

Nott's lip curled in distaste. "Pray do tell."

"I had to wrestle you to the floor, drag you up the stairs. Flint would have knocked you out cold the way you were struggling, if I hadn't stopped him." Blaise found himself spilling. He emphasised each every line because he'd been there and actually done all of those things. He'd done it for...forget it.

Theo opened his mouth to speak and there was a small delay before words actually issued. "Thank you Blaise for ...your charity."

Blaise drew up short. That was it? That was all he had to say? A sarcastic thank you. Son of a bitch! Blaise roared. **"I didn't want you to lose face!"** Oh, Merlin. The truth was out now. He watched Theo roll back into position on the mattress, butterbeer in hand, eyes still trained on the blasted notes. Should Blaise have even hoped for a reaction? Then the word struck him. The words Theo had just used..._charity_. Blaise felt his knuckles in his fist pop. "Never use that word again." It was a cold warning.

"_Charity?"_

Blaise felt his blood boil. "That was not what it was." His biceps tensed ribs still sore from dragging Nott's frame across the floor. _He had tripped and stumbled over carpe, even over his own ankles and sent Nott sprawling with him. Then he'd been elbowed like shit crazy by the same boy._ "That's not what we are." They were purebloods, elite members of society, slytherins, the same age, from the same sorts of dysfunctional families, with the same bleak outlook. They were equals and more similar to each other than Nott ever cared to admit.

Blaise said. "You hauled me out of parties a few times, when I was drunk and causing a riot. " The memories from fifth year were burned into his subconscious; Theo pulling him to one side, and coldly reminding him of the consequences of his lack of self control and his self destructive behaviour. He was still in the bereavement stage and Theo was a still new friend. Even then, he had recognised Theo as a friend, though he did not outwardly show it. He maintained the illusion of a working partnership to the rest of his housemates, like Theo did. The working partnership cemented into a solid alliance. The sorry truth was that just having Theo around made Blaise less likely to go off and do something stupid. An even sorrier truth was that Theo would exist just fine without him.

"I believe I thanked you."

Yeah...fuck Nott. Blaise turned around and resumed his press –ups. "Out of control bastard."

"What did you say?" _That_ got a reaction.

Blaise grunted from the exertion. **One hundred and two. One hundred and three**. "I said you were out of control."

"I drank excessively." He stated like it meant to be explanatory.

Blaise snorted. "Just admit you were drunk. I saw you down that bottle."

Silence.

Blaise looked up. Surprisingly enough, Theo's gaze was not fixed on the notes but staring vacantly into space, his body gone deathly still. "Theo?" Blaise prompted. His arms collapsed inwards on press up **one hundred and five**.

"You shouldn't have bothered." He was still staring into space like the undead.

"Why not?" Blaise grated, chest melded into the carpet. "Afraid I caught you in a weak moment?"

When Theo took his time in answering, Blaise concluded that was a yes. It should not have irked him so. He was a slytherin. He understood the rules of the snake pit, but they did not apply here. "So let me get this straight!" He pushed his torso off the ground. "You would rather lose face in front of the entire slytherin common room – people who would trample over their dead grandmothers if it helped their cause, than me." Theo had helped shoulder Blaise' burdens too many times to count. Theo never shared any of his troubles with Blaise. _Do you realise how fucking useless that makes me feel?_

"Are you any different?" Theo asked.

Blaise felt like putting a fist through that face as well as his own. He really needed to realise when to walk away from it all, like Nott was telling him to. "Then why did you still hang around with me?"

"I find you tolerable."

Blaise looked up. He could feel a ghost of a smile pulling the corner of Theo's mouth. His concentration wavered and gravity slammed his entire body into the ground. "Tolerable." _First charity and now it was tolerance._ "What the fuck is wrong with you?" **One hundred and six.** "Something happened today and you are still reeling from it."

Nott opened his mouth to speak but Blaise interjected. "In potions, you had a go at Granger in the store room cupboard. I saw her run out in terror – you never paid any Gryffindor the slightest attention before. You skipped History of Magic. You missed lunch. You went for a walk that lasted almost three hours in the bloody freezing cold. You come back with three red welts across your face and a split lip, like you got in a catfight. You haven't spoken a word to anyone all day. You then drink an entire bottle of firewhisky, started a fight with Malfoy of all people, and hexed him with near-unforgivable curses. Now you're trying to pretend to me that nothing happened. Drop the fucking act and tell me what's going on!"

When Nott remained as motionless as a stone statue, Blaise pressed further. "Is this about your father? Did he write you? Did he disinherit you?"

"Blaise, you should not prod into affairs that don't concern you." Nott said composure fracturing.

Blaise rose to his feet. "This does concern me. You're acting funny."

"How I behave is none of your concern!"

"I am your..." Friend was on the tip of his tongue.

"Mother?" Theo finished. "She died when I was five." The notes were placed in his lip with utmost care but his hands were balled into fists beside them. "I have survived just fine without my mother and without the need to find a surrogate." _'Unlike you'_ was left unsaid.

Blaise noticed. "That's just cold even by your standards." "I never depended on you like that!"

Theo cut in coldly. "You were a mess at the end of fifth year. I was a constant in that turmoil. You may have not have depended on me intentionally or knowingly but it happened."

Blaise swore, throwing his hands up to clutch at his head, and rolling onto his back.

Theo was far from finished. "You were grieving Blaise, for a woman who didn't give a damn about you and for lost opportunities for reconciliation with her. When we became acquainted, I played a supporting role in your life at that time that helped you deal. Your affections for me are misplaced. Originally, they belonged to _her_.

Blaise sat up with the rage of a storm in his eyes. "Why the hell did you approach me then in the dormitories? If you knew I was going to be such a burden, such a liability, to you?"

"Because you were falling off the rails and I happened to be there, as a fellow pureblood..."

"DO NOT BRING BLOOD INTO THIS!" Blaise roared across the room. "Just don't Nott. Tracey...Tracey was not a pureblood and you did exactly to her what you are doing to me now."

"What did I do to her?"

"Act like you don't know." Zabini cursed muttering furiously under his breath.

Then Nott looked away this time, his eyes frosted over in remembrance, Blaise looked away too in disgust. She had been quiet back then...mousey. She studied so hard, spending all her free time in the library, and yet passed exams only managing above average. Draco Malfoy could achieve the same results as her without spending a fifth of the time revising. She did not even seem to belong in slytherin. Probably was best suited for Hufflepuff and Nott moved on her like a rattlesnake. They both knew it.

"And what happens now? About us?" Blaise said defeatedly.

"Now you have forgotten that the circumstances are different. You are no longer grieving. Your expectations of me are unreasonable." He paused for breath. "Understand that there is no us. There is a you and I." Nott stated with finality. "Do not expect me to fall at your feet in gratitude. Blaise, I need nothing from you."

* * *

><p><strong><span>Gryffindor Common Room<span>**

The common room was strewn with red; red banners, red scarves, red robes and the red party was in full swing. Tankards were being passed around; chocolate frogs were leaping over sofas, games of 'snap' exploded on the tables. A chorus of Gryffindors sang "Weasley is our King" with gusto, swaying on their feet; while Alicia, Ginny and Angelina tried all the silencing spells they knew to no effect, before they themselves stood up and joined the choir. In the midst of all the merriment and red celebrations, Hermione Granger was feeling distinctly blue.

"Hermione! Hermione!" Ron yelled, prying himself from Harry's bear hug to face his friend- the only seated person in the room, and clutching a red flag to her like a hot water bottle."Did you see that goal I saved? Did you see the look on Montague's face?"

H_ow on Earth did he expect her to see the look on Montague's face, if he thought she had been sitting in the stands?_ She smiled wearily. "It was amazing, Ron."

Liar! Liar! Her subconscious took great pleasure in informing her.

_ I'm not listening to you, she informed it._

"Oi Weasley!" Someone thumped him from behind. He swung round to see Dean Thompson press a second flask into his hands. "Drink up!"

Harry, Seamus, Neville and Dean and the rest of the boys clapped and cheered Ron on to down the whole flask in one go. "Go on son!" They whooped, and shouted encouragements building up to the inevitable crescendo.

Hermione wrung her hands in her lap, watching the proceedings with growing unease.

Harry threw her an odd look, somewhere between disapproval and concern. Was he going to make his way over? Her leg muscles contracted in anticipation ready to bolt if he was.

What's up? He mouthed.

She shook her head vigorously, trying to dispel those traitorous tears. She gave her watery smile another go, hoping it would stall his sudden interest.

He nodded meaningfully at her, the gesture translating into words as "I want a full explanation." When he pushed through the exuberant dancing towards her, she realised he wanted that explanation now. Her pulse rate kicked and then tripled. Subconsciously, the cushion that she had been holding in her lap was now pressing into her chest. She tried swallowing past the lump in her throat. Long rangy strides brought him ever closer to her sofa and she could not keep watching that muscled frame grow larger and larger as he neared. Harry Potter could be bloody terrifying when he wanted to be. He came to a stop in front of her and looked at her expectantly.

"I'm fine." She spluttered before he had even asked.

He raised a brow to say I hadn't asked.

"But you were thinking it." She retorted defensively.

He ordered. "Get up."

"I'm not a dog."

"Do you really want me to pull you up?" He said, tone softening somewhat.

Even she knew she could not keep moping in the corner like a killjoy in full view of the party. Tentatively, she held out a hand.

He pulled her to her feet, righting her, letting her go as she kicked on her shoes.

"I'm fine. I really am."

He smirked, a look more suited for Malfoy than it ever would be for him. "I know."

Perhaps because the smirk looked so strange, she couldn't hold back the smallest of smiles. "Where are we going?"

* * *

><p>They did not even go far. Harry and Hermione sat cross-legged in front of the fat lady's portrait at the top of the stairs like it was the most natural place to sit. Ghosts and portraits on the wall behind flitted from frame to frame, dropping visits and discussing in hushed tones about the pair of students who had left the party. The fat lady was so bold as to harrumph and tut.<p>

"Yeah?" Harry turned.

"Six inch rule." She stated and then pouted.

Hermione smacked a hand over her open mouth. "We are not a couple!"

Her best friend mussed his hair over his eyes, knowing full well that irritated the fat lady more than his un-tucked shirt ever did. "What rule is the six inch rule?"

Hermione gushed. "It is the minimum separation between a boy and girl. It was quoted a lot at mixed muggle boarding schools. Though this is the first time I have ever heard it said at Hogwarts."

"Oh, you two just wait till a professor arrives!"

They chuckled at the fat lady's expense. When Hermione took a deep breath to compose her, Harry asked for that explanation.

"Don't tell me it's nothing."

She fought for words. "Well..."

"I _know_ you did not come to the match."

The statement brought her up short. "How?" She asked sharply. Inside, she was sighing continuously with relief. One less event she needed to lie about. Lying involved a spontaneous imagination.

"Alicia was looking for you and Mclaggen was apparently sitting alone."

Oh. Hermione closed her mouth.

Harry probed. "Err...is this about Mclaggen? Did he do something?"

"No." She said wearily, "Harry, it's not a big deal at all." She tried to get up but his hand clamped around her arm and forcefully sat her back down. "That hurt!"

"Why are you avoiding the question?"

"I..." She fumbled for words, realising in that instant that by not coming with any sort of explanation for her antisocial and generally miserable demeanour, she was making a large fuss out of _nothing_. Except this 'nothing' had gnawing at her sanity like 'something' for the last three hours. She forced a cheery smile. "Harry I just ran into a slytherin before the game started."

Harry tensed immediately. It was not the sort of reaction she had been hoping. Hoping to throw him off the scent, she found that her sufficiently vague answer had piqued his interest again. Except this time it was not mild concern radiating from him but a dangerously brittle caution. "Which slytherin?" His voice had acquired a metallic edge.

"A slytherin from our year."

Harry grilled. "Boy or girl?"

Was that even a question? The image of the tall, brooding slytherin with cold aristocratic features and shadows in his eyes came to mind. "Girl." She said, too quickly for it to sound genuine. She inhaled sharply.

He repeated. "A girl?"

She quashed the thought of Nott, bundling him into one of the dark recesses in her mind. How could she keep lying like this? As if telling the truth is an option, she snorted. "It was Bulstrode."

"Bulstrode?" Harry said incredulously. "Bulstrode is the reason for your low mood. Really?"

Hermione stammered. "I guess... I was just trying to help her. She insulted me. I..." _The bone-splintering slap she had administered to Nott's cheek reverberated within her own ears. God, it was loud!_ _**Focus on Harry**__. _"I very nearly got physical with her."

Harry interrupted, now looking a bit alarmed at where her account of events were leading. "Hermione, you seen the size of Bulstrode? She could have snapped you like a twig. What were you thinking?"

"I _didn't_ hit her." Hermione emphasised, biting the words out between clenched teeth. "I may have threatened her though –unintentionally." The problem with lying once was that the first lie had to be covered by another nine lies and then she had to remember all ten lies if she was going to lie again. How did the truth sound in her ears? _Harry, I bitch-slapped Theodore Nott – you know that death eater's son."_

"Then what happened?" Harry pressed.

Hermione thought back the actual event, trying to remember as many details so as to wring out as many half truths as possible, consistent with her current highly edited version of events. _Stick to half truths! _At least half truths had some basis. "Well, Millicent just shouted at me for being a Mudblood. I was just feeling pretty stupid about the whole mess. I guess it's half my fault for provoking her to say all those things though I wish I could just blame it entirely on her."

Harry shifted, bringing himself closer that their knees were touching. "What did you try to help her with? Was it homework?"

"I erm." _She could see him in his black windbreaker, stepping out from under the shade trees, so contained within that rigid muscled form when everything else around him was being battered and swept sideways by the wind._ "I kind of ran into her. It was unavoidable and awkward. I just said hello."

Harry mused. "Let me guess, she didn't say hello back, but something along the lines of 'Fuck off Granger'."

She wished that was the case – she would then have thought nothing of the encounter, except what a bastard he was. Instead his silence had translated into words along the lines _I have nothing to say to you Granger and so I will take my leave. _And then _she_ had to pressure him into staying; provoking him, lashing out at him, clawing him for a fight. A fight she wanted and the glittering promise in his eyes told her that he would fight back, with no holds bar.

"So why are you so upset over it? Did you expect anything different from her? She is a slytherin?

_ I thought he was different._

Harry continued. "They are all cut from the same cloth, you know. They've been suckling the ideas of blood purity from their mums when they were babies. They don't know anything else. It makes them feel special and important. They like that feeling." He slung an arm over her shoulder. "Cheer up Mione, Bulstrode isn't worth it at all. She really isn't."

She leaned into his warm hold. "Thanks, Harry." She wanted to feel happy, fuzzy and warm. She wanted to take the comfort he was offering her, and discard Nott's bitter aftertaste. She wanted that thought of _him_ gone.

"Are you sure that's the only thing bothering you?"

She nodded definitively, not in a mood to listen to that pleading voice that told her to face what was truly upsetting her. I'm not running from it, she told herself. I'm just not going to dwell on him, because he's not worth my time.

You are still upset.

No, I'm not. She denied vehemently. See, I'm smiling.

Harry smiled back at her. "The potion's incident still weighing you down?"

Hermione straightened. She had almost forgotten about _that._

"If it makes you feel any better, you're one of the contenders for Hogwarts rear of the year award?" Harry sat back, "And I even got asked by Blaise Zabini why I am not banging you?"

The revulsion on her face was reflexive. Her thoughts immediately went to Ginny. "Did you tell him you have a girlfriend who would kick your ass?"

"I did." Harry commented. "Zabini said your ass was worth it."

She shook her head. "Merlin, that boy has no shame."

"It's the first time I've ever spoken to him."

This time Hermione's laughter was genuine. She had almost forgotten about the other slytherin. _Almost_.

"SIX INCH RULE!" the fat lady screamed, nearly falling out of her frame with the exertion.

Harry snapped backwards. "I am hugging my friend. If that's a problem, close your eyes."

The fat lady screeched. "They are closed, yo_u_ insolent boy! Next you and your friend will be passionate lip-lock, spraying my frame with saliva." The Grecian goddess that Hermione sarcastically referred to, was braced with hands on either side of the frame and eyes bulging comically out of her head. "Hmm, you have nothing to add?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, thinking of Ron and Lavender's impassioned drunken frolics.

"Yeah" Harry added. "How can you measure out six inches, when your eyes are closed?"

Hermione tugged at his sleeve in warning. "Harry, please. She is very sensitive to those sort of comments - especially regarding intelligence. Let's go back to the party." She exchanged a pleading look with him that translated into..._before she changes the password_!

Harry shrugged and then laughed.

* * *

><p>Sometime after eleven, it was decided and announced by Lee Jordan that all years below sixth had to go to bed, unless they were on the team. That was after the professor McGonagall had stormed into the common room calling for the party to end and the mess to be cleared. <em><strong>It was too noisy. It had gone on for two long. It sounded like a murder had taken place.<strong>_ Those were her exact words. At that point Seamus had pushed through the crowd to address the professor that indeed a murder had happened. "A murder of slytherin pride." To which she informed him he had a detention the following week with Argus Filch, after the thunderous applause ended. Then she had stormed out, making an equally dramatic entrance.

Lee Jordan took the responsibility upon himself to escorting the younger miscreants back to their dormitories. "Move along Creevey! We don't have all night!"

The blonde muttered something furiously under his breath.

"What was that about my mother?" Jordan snapped.

Hermione found herself smiling at the light banter, open friendliness and warmth of her housemates. She felt happy in this moment and this felt right until those harsh rain-washed-slate grey eyes, as slippery as roof tiles, kept opening in front of her. She bit her lip and waved the image away. She sat holding a tissue; one that she had offered Katie after Katie spilled pumpkin juice on herself. There was a small orange heart-shaped splodge on the top right hand corner that had dried. She rolled the soft papery warmth of the napkin through her finger, feeling it cushion and slide against the pad of her thumb, and through the creases in her palm, like it belonged. Then in her mind's eye, she saw him; arm outstretched, face murderous and marked with red welts. "_Take it." He growled_.

"Why?" She had whispered so low, it was drowned in the shouts and excited screams of her housemates who were making human pyramids on the coffee tables.

_ "It's not mine." His voice was so steady, facial expression so rigidly contained as to be without emotion. If she reached out to him and touched him, her fingers would be enveloped by frostbite. _

"I've never seen it before."

_He examined the tissue for the spattered orange stain, before holding the tissue to show her it. He took a breath to compose his question, looking poised to wound. His expression was grave. "Granger, when __**you**__ look in the mirror, do __**you**__ see imperfection?"_

She put a hand up to her face, dazed. Imperfection? Is that what he saw in his mirror or when he looked at her? "I don't understand?" She sputtered.

_ Showing no outward irritation at her delay in answering him, he reworded the question into lay terms "Do you see this in the mirror?" He held the orange stain in the light. "Or this?" He held the remaining unspoiled, flawless and pure white napkin in front of her eyes. _

_ "Why?" She breathed._

_ "I want to know. I want to know if you see what I see." _

_ She replied, her skin raw and peeling under his scrutiny. "What do you see Nott?" It was the last thing on Earth she wanted to know and under the crushing weight of his gaze, she knew she was inviting despair._

_ "I see all things as they are." He said with an un-blinkered stare. "I am not blind."_

She crushed the tissue in an iron grip, trying shaking the thought of him and all the thoughts of inadequacy that he brought with him. Hot salty tears sprang to her eyes but damn him to Azkaban! Just damn him!

* * *

><p>The atmosphere had not sombre considerably after McGonagall's arrival. The remaining students pulled the sofas and arm chairs around in a large circle, and sat. Some were cross-legged on the floor and others sat on armrests, on spare laps or stood. A hush of eager anticipation fell on the group of sixth and seventh years. Fred and George had placed two firewhisky bottles on the floor in the centre<p>

Fred whistled for silence. "Thank you all. We thought long and hard about finding a celebratory drinking game because we thought you might want something a bit more interesting this time than _spin the emptied bottle._

Hermione wrinkled her nose in disgust. She was feeling somewhat better after her little imagined rant at Theodore Nott, comfortable sandwiched with Parvati and Katie on a sofa with Angelina balanced precariously on the arm rest. Spin the bottle had been a game she had opted out of too many times. Being forced to watch Lavender and Ron in "passionate lip lock" – no offense to either of them- was an exercise in torture. Speak of the devil – where was Lavender? Actually, she would rather not know.

George continued. "You're probably thinking how this game is going to be anything new when all I have here are two bottles of firewhisky." He clapped his hands theatrically over the low level chatter. "May I have silence please?" He clapped his brother's back." Fred, please will you bring before our fellow housemates the _other_ bottle."

Eager eyes watched Fred cross the common room to the boys' dorms. After a minute or so he returned in hand with an intriguing blue bottle.

What is that?" Seamus pointed at the smaller dark blue glass bottle in Fred's hands.

The girls on the sofa craned their necks for a better view. The hush of anticipation fell over as the bottle was brought to the front.

Parvati mused. "Is that perfume?" When Seamus laughed at her, she replied indignantly, "I swear that looks like a muggle perfume bottle!"

"This game is little bit different to seven minutes in alcohol-induced- heaven and definitely will appeal to our more philosophical housemates. Fred gestured in Hermione's direction and she stiffened immediately as everyone's eyes were on her. "This drinking game George and I have thought about, involves some soul searching."

George emphasised. "Some truth-seeking."

"It's probably going to kick up some dirt." Fred nodded at all the boys present.

"And shake your faith." George added dramatically.

"You are probably going to find about how truly loving your true love is and about the strength of your friendships."

Angelina and Alicia looked at each other, both becoming rather tense.

George exchanged a sly knowing smile with Fred. "Like I said everyone, this game is going to be different. Who is in?"

A chorus of cheers broke out. The answer was affirmative.

Fred smiled to himself at the brilliance of their idea, whilst receiving a celebratory nudge in the ribs from his twin who noticed the expression. He bent down on the ground with the blue bottle marked with the initials VS that he had kept hidden from view when he had first displayed the bottle. They were going to be in so much shit for stealing this beauty but it was so going to be worth it. Carefully he unscrewed the lid, and took a sniff. The smile widened. It hadn't spoiled. Good stuff. He screwed the lid back on, stood up and held out the bottle to George. That was when he saw _her_.

**Holy Motherfuck.**

He rubbed his eyes again. This had to be a joke – a prank gone seriously wrong. One of Ron's _eat-slugs_ moments.

She raised one eyebrow at him, slowly, from where she stood at the portrait entrance, arms folded across her chest.

Damn he was still hallucinating.

"Mate, let go off the bottle," Fred was shaken out of his thoughts, by George who was trying to extract VS from his white-knuckled grip.

He pointed distractedly. "George, look!

George shook him off abruptly. "Yeah, I know, its eleven thirty."

"No George, look!" He said more forcefully and desperately.

"At what?" George asked.

McGonagall expression grew ever sterner, lips drawn into an ever thinner, grimmer line.

"McGonagall is here." He whispered spelling the words out very slowly for his twin to hear and trying to pry the blue bottle (which was now engraved with 'deep shit' instead of VS) back from George's hands and to position it out of her line of sight.

"Stop being so paranoid." His twin snapped.

Fred's jaw dropped. He was rendered speechless. He stared across the room at her. She did not look best pleased. In fact, she was tapping her foot rather impatiently, prompting him to be reminded of someone else...Mum.

George was saying something, the words blurring together as one indistinguishable torrent of excitement. Fred shook himself, forcing himself to listen.

"And we'll have some fights too!" George interjected. "Please proceed to Lee whose organising the bettings this evening."

McGonagall raised an eyebrow.

Fred coughed rather conspicuously. He stepped forwards in front of George. "No fights." He clarified to everyone. "That was a joke." He said in his most solemn voice, giving George a quelling look. "We do not condone violence or gambling."

Then his twin turned on Fred, his back to the rest of the Gryffindors so they would not see the private exchange. "What is your bloody problem?"

Fred tried pointing. "Look..."

George turned away sharply and waggled his eyebrows at Lee Jordan, standing five metres away, who shoved the 'betting' box behind the nearest sofa.

_Later_. George nodded. _Good lad._

George clasped his hands, continuing. "This game is all in the name of mischief."

"And mayhem." Lee Jordan said.

Fred glanced at a wary McGonagall, before hurriedly adding. "And self introspection."

George spluttered a cough. "Yes of course." "Best excuse to get hammered!" He shot Fred a funny look.

McGonagall was looking less and less impressed.

Fred cleared his throat, avoiding her glare and his brother's. "Please drink responsibly... on the way."

Harry, and the rest of the boys raised their flasks in salute.

Hermione wrinkled her nose suspiciously. Fred looked somewhat uptight. WTF was clearly the expression pasted on George's face. She glanced over her shoulder, throwing the rest of her hair behind her. How long was George going to prattle on about this drinking game? They might as well start the drinking now - not that she would participate. She had a meeting tomorrow morning with McGonagall over the potions incident and she did not want to appear hung over for that.

**OH MY WORD!**

She gagged on her tongue. Was that? Oh my goodness? No way. Professor McGonagall? Leaning against the wall and arms folded. Hermione's breath rushed out of her.

Katie asked. "What's going on?" as she turned in her seat to look at Hermione anxiously.

Fred obviously knew about this. He glared back at her affirmatively. "Tell him" she gestured. He shrugged, motioning that he had tried to. She flailed with her arms to get George to stop talking.

George said charmingly, stopping his speech midway. "Something the matter, Hermione love?"

Hermione frantically tried mouthing the professor's name. Obviously she could not just announce it with the professor standing right there.

"Sorry, I can't hear you sweetheart." George said, before picking up right where he left off. "Tonight folks, you're going to drink till you're sick! Drink till you blow up like Harry's aunt!"

Katie jumped in her seat. She pulled on Hermione's arm. "Please tell me that I did not just see who that was?"

Angelina was next to notice. "Shit! The Professor is just standing there and not doing _anything_."

Parvati exclaimed. "We are in so much trouble!"

"Will someone please get this moron to shut up?" Hermione hissed furiously, indicating in George's direction, while he continued to extol the aesthetic benefits of being 'off-your-face.'

Now George was prancing around with the blue bottle singing its praises.

Rather courageously, Angelina stood up to make _the_ announcement.

Fred cut in, saving her. "George, just stop! Professor McGonagall is here in this room!"

Ron who had been sitting quietly in the audience with Harry and Seamus, spoke up, "McGonagall? What does that bloody harpy want now?"

Fred's heart sank.

The Professor enunciated carefully as she made her way towards the fireplace, examining all the devastation in her path. "I'll be seeing you in my office, all of you boys."

Hermione concluded the party was now well and truly over.

* * *

><p><span>Preview for next chapter - McGonagall's office<span>

_**"You want us to..." Ron's voice trailed off in horror.**_

_**McGonagall nodded curtly. "Yes, is there a problem Weasley?"**_

_**Harry glanced anxiously out of the window, shrivelling with realisation at what McGonagall wanted them to do after this meeting.**_

_**George quipped. "Of course not, Miss." Doing twenty laps of the quidditch field at this time of night, with Argus Filch supervising them, sounded spiffing.**_

_**McGonagall was not finished yet. "I'll be writing to your parents. All of you have detention with me next week and a ban from playing in the next quidditch match."**_

_** "But Miss!" Harry protested. **_

_**McGonagall was having none of it. "I'm sorry, Mr Potter. That's the way it is going to be. You may go." **_

_**The boys turned to leave.**_

_**"Actually before you depart." She called out. "I want to know exactly what THIS is." She held up the blue bottle, initaled VS. "Is this Muggle liquor?"**_

_**Fred and George squirmed uncomfortably. **_

_**George muttered under his breath to his partner in crime. "We're going to have bluff our way out of this."**_

_**"Majorly." Fred agreed.**_

* * *

><p><em>Ten minutes later<strong>... <strong>_

_**Angelina shook Hermione awake. "I was sent to get you. McGonagall wants to see you in her office."**_

_**HOPE YOU ENJOYED! - night violet.**_


	9. The VS debarcle

**A/N: I bring long awaited gifts. Thanks to all reviewers, followers and readers.**

* * *

><p>The classroom McGonagall had them summoned to, was dimly lit and devoid of cages for quetzals and other transfigured exotic birds. Numerous parchment rolls, rotas and timetables were spread on the teacher's desk. A detention room, Harry thought glumly. Weasley twins to his right were exchanging low mutterings of speculation. Ron looked miserable. Harry was simply resigned to his fate.<p>

That was when the door opened and slammed shut behind the grave faced professor. She strode briskly down the aisle between the desks and chairs, robes billowing around her. She shouted. "Off my desk, Weasley!"

George reluctantly ambled off his perch, hands stuffed into his pockets and shuffled into place in line beside Fred.

"Well?" Her tongue clicked as she planted herself into her official seat behind her desk, scrutinising her four delinquents. "What have you got to say for yourselves?"

Silence. No one wanted to be the idiot who answered that question.

Her wand hand flicked, clearing the spread parchments and rotas instantly. Harry distractedly followed their progress across the room, the sheets furling and unfurling like bird wings before finally slotting themselves into a navy blue folder titled miscellaneous in an inundated filing cabinet. His attention snapped back to the present.

"I specifically instructed you to stop the party and return to your dormitories!" Professor McGonagall said shrilly. She looked at each of them with a stern glare that none of them could manage to return. Her voice strained to a wheeze. "Have you got _anything_ to say for yourselves?"

Ron didn't dare look up past the height of the teacher's desk. Harry scuffed his shoes against the floor, unconsciously mimicking Ron's actions. An uncomfortable silence descended and stretched for long minutes. Harry muscles tensed and coiled, ready to bolt for the door. Then Fred who had remained solemn all the while, lips pursed tightly in reflection spoke. "We should have been more discrete, Professor."

George bit the inside of his cheek.

McGonagall gave a look to the heavens for strength. "The word I am looking for Weasley is obedient! Clearly that was too much to ask from you and your ilk!"

Fred bit his lip, head bowing instantly. There was a vein raised and ready to pop like a blood blister in her right temple. Ron hadn't noticed that before, so he stared at it a little longer. Harry nudged him. Ron's curious expression had not gone unnoticed.

"Ronald Weasley!" McGonagall shouted.

Ron jumped out of his skin at the sound. "Professor?"

The professor scowled, observing his un-tucked shirt and the holes in his maroon turtleneck jumper, one in each elbow and deliberate ones in his cuffs which his thumbs had hooked through. The dirt-encrusted nail beds in his thumbs had also been noted. She enunciated slowly. "Perhaps you can tell me the meaning of the word harpy."

Ron opened his mouth and then remembered how he was talking to. McGonagall studiously ignored the antics of the three boys to the left of him. He scratched his forehead, his face ripening like a tomato under searing scrutiny. Ron shook his head a few times or rather made some strange twitching head movements pivoted on a stiff neck, before mumbling a strangled. "I don't know, Miss."

"You don't know?" If looks could kill, it would be engraving Ronald Weasley on a gravestone.

Harry made a weird snorting sound, somewhere a guffaw and a gargle, while George was trying to holding himself upright.

"I...err... no." Ronald closed his mouth.

Her nostrils pinched to slits. "Your mother..."

At the mention of that person, Ron blanched.

She continued, "Asked me to watch you over closely, Weasley. It grieves me to see you following in your brothers' footsteps." McGonagall threw a meaningful glance to the left of him. Despite the gravity of the situation, both Fred and George rolled their eyes at each other in disgust. "Percy!"

"No bloody initiative." Fred concurred.

McGonagall gave them a quelling look. "I meant you two!" She rested her elbows against the desk and leaned forwards, weight braced on them. "I don't think you boys realise the seriousness of your actions – Potter, stop fidgeting!" She screeched.

Harry's hands immediately fell away from curling his shirt tails.

McGonagall pinched the bridge of her nose for a few seconds to re-establish her inner calm. _Uh-oh the serious face was on. George waggled a brow at Fred. _She took a deep breath, before rattling off a list. "You organised and brought alcohol onto the school premises, held a party past the curfew time, encouraged and facilitated underage drinking. You ignored my specific instructions for the party to end." Her mouth was pressed in a thin flat angry line. "I am not impressed with ANY of you!" She spat.

Harry opened his mouth to counter.

"Quiet, Potter!" She screamed. She jabbed the air in front of him with her wand. "I hold you personally responsible as much as I hold the Weasley brothers responsible. I expected more from a Gryffindor quidditch captain. The behaviour of your teammates today was shameful and you did nothing!"

Harry flinched under the weight of her words, and focused on a speck on the ground that seemed to flicker and move all over the carpet.

The professor's tirade (which left her quite breathless) had not been enough to scratch Fred and George's thick skin. Fred rather boldly asked. "Professor, where are..."

McGonagall pre-empted the question. "Longbottom, Thomas and other boys are currently doing their 10 laps of the quidditch pitch under supervision by Argus Filch. When I am finished speaking with you, the four of you will be joining them, 20 laps each."

Ron glanced furtively over his shoulder to the distant sounds of rolling thunder through the rain-spattered window. He gulped. "Right now, Professor?"

"When do you have in mind?" She clicked her fingers and a fresh roll of parchment and a quill appeared on her desk. She leant back in her chair, arms folded across her chest. "Now tell me what I should do with all four of you."

Fred could not believe his ears. _There was more punishment?_

Her gaze tracked sideways to George Weasley, who tried for a charming smile. "A slap on the wrist, a peck on the cheek, a dose of wise words and send us to our beds like good boys."

McGonagall cursed herself for not being head of Hufflepuff. Needless to say George's cheeky smile was not returned. She replied frostily. "Actually I think it's going to be an afterschool detention with me every day of next week." The quill began to write of its accord, streaking across the parchments in precise punctuated swirls.

Collective groans broke out.

Her palm slammed down on the desk. The boys jumped, spines locking ram-rod straight, standing to attention like soldiers. Once she felt satisfied with the renewed sense of order she continued in a softer but firm tone. "You are all banned from the next Gryffindor quidditch game."

Jaws dropped, hitting the floor simultaneously. No one had been expecting that. Ron looked as though he had been gutted. The only sound breaking the pin drop silence was the scratching quill as it bore deep tattooing the parchment.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor for each one of you." McGonagall added with a note of finality. "Letters will be sent home and you will all be speaking to the headmaster individually regarding this matter. I want you to know that you have been let off very _lightly_.

_This was light? Harry thought_

"Had you been in any other house, I can guarantee you would be facing immediate suspension." She paused for a moment, deliberately to allow the words to sink in.

Harry waited for her to dismiss them. When she lifted 2 firewhisky bottles off the floor onto the desk and then finally the infamous blue VS bottle by its neck, he knew this debacle was far from over. "Before you leave, would anyone like to explain me what this is?" McGonagall's glare piercing in its intensity, landed on him. "Mr Potter, perhaps you can try."

Harry shook himself out of freeze frame, jaw slack and held open, eyes unable to tear themselves away from the shiny purplish depths of the liquid inside. He realised that she was waiting for an appropriate answer. She expected that _he_ had one. His tongue was tied in knots. He had NO idea what that bottle contained, but knew who did. Those two individuals had taken a small step back, as though wiping their hands clean of the crime and merging with the wallpaper as innocent onlookers.

"Then perhaps Mr Potter would..." She broke off mid-way, interrupted by the rapping of the door. Irritated at the interruption, she swivelled her chair and called out come in.

Filch's greasy rat tailed locks and sweat smeared forehead appeared around the doorframe. "Professor, you might like to see this."

"See what?" She snapped with ill-disguised impatience.

"It's urgent! Professor, if you will follow me." His beady amber eyes locked on the four Gryffindors in the classroom and yellowing teeth bared their approval. Fred sneered back.

McGonagall rose to her feet, harrumphed. "Wait here!"

With breath held, they watched the door close behind her and heard the clack of her shoes down the corridor. Talk about small mercies!

Harry turned to face the twins, knowing they needed to think of a game plan quickly before she came back. Merlin knew when McGonagall would return. "She thinks it's me! She thinks I know."

Fred and George shared looks of unease but they weren't complaining.

Harry clarified. "I'm **not** going to take all the blame!"

Fred patted his shoulder awkwardly. "Relax, Harry. She is not sure what it is herself. She is not picking on you...err..."

Ron picked up the bottle and examined it." What is in this anyway?"

"Yeah?" Harry echoed with a challenge in his voice.

George winced.

Fred looked in pain.

Harry pointed out. "We don't have much time! If we're going to bluff our way out of trouble, we need to know what we're dealing with." He glanced again at the clock above McGonagall's filing cabinet, all the more aware of the ticking of the second hand as it closed on the full minute. It struck half eleven. His pulse kicked. McGonagall could be coming down the corridor any moment now. George sensed Harry's growing dread.

The Weasley in crime held up his hands. "Alright we come clean. It's exactly what it says on the label."

Fred confirmed. " Veritaserum."

Harry recoiled. He pointed at the bottle in Ron's hands. "VERITASERUM? That's veritaserum?" He bellowed. "Why the hell did you bring veritaserum to the party for?"

"Weren't you even listening to the introduction I gave for our drinking game?" George retorted, assuming a very macho pose with arms folded across his chest.

Ron placed the bottle very gently back on the desk. "It's pretty. Where did you get it from?"

Harry demanded. "Stolen? Borrowed or brewed?" he said, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.

Fred pursed his lips. "You know what George, I think I like the word borrowed."

"Who from?" Ron enquired.

George made an odd gargling noise in his throat.

"Snape?" Ron translated.

"SNAPE?" Harry roared. His eyes had practically jumped out of their sockets, and were rolling somewhere under the first and second rows of the desks. "You stole that from Snape?"

Oh Hell.

An overly confident with the practiced sleaze of a salesman, George corrected, hooking an arm over Fred's shoulder. "Borrowed without prior notice and with the intention of returning it without being noticed either."

Harry could not believe what he was hearing. "Are you two raving mad? You _stole_ veritaserum from Snape? Snape of all people?"

"Borrowed! Damit!" Fred stomped a foot on the ground.

"When do you plan on giving back to him - after our twenty laps of the quidditch pitch when it's mid morning?" Harry snapped.

"Woah." Ron held up his hands. "Let's not fight here." He shifted his body so his shoulder poked in front of Harry's, forcing the captain to take a step back and regain control of that rarely seen temper. The tension in the room eased a fraction. Harry took a breath in, hands braced on hips, rolling his head forwards and then far back as his neck muscles would allow. "Right!" He said, snapping his head into position, in a business like tone to the twins. "How did you get hold of the veritaserum?"

After a five second interval of telepathic communication between the twins, George confessed. "Last week, Filch caught us after curfew time – we were coming back from Honey dukes. He took us straight to Snape's office." He stopped midflow, shared a knowing look between his twins before. "You can tell the rest."

"We saw Snape coming out of a hole in his office wall." Fred looked all too eager. "He's got a bookcase behind his desk that takes you into a private store cupboard/ potions lab."

George butted in. "Not even the house-elves know about and we made a few subtle enquiries." He gestured animatedly to space above his head. "There are racks and racks of potions: amortensia, Felix felicis, veritaserum, polyjuice – you name it, they are all there, all in similar bottles and brewed at very high concentration."

"The stuff is potent!"

"It's a secret stash."

Ron asked. "What would he need it for?"

Harry shrugged. "Whatever it's for, it is important to him otherwise it wouldn't be behind in a storeroom behind a book case." Harry paused, mulling over the details in his mind and arriving at a rather unnerving conclusion. "If McGonagall finds out what that..." He gestured to the bottle. "Or where that bottle's from, Snape will know immediately suspect Gryffindors, seeing as we were the only house partying last night."

"If he wants to keep the storeroom a secret from the other professors, he'll act the innocent. He'll pretend not to recognise it." Fred stated. Unfortunately Harry knew that Snape's temporary silence would not give them any immunity or protection, although it would keep McGonagall on the dark and well out of the picture. She was a complication that neither they nor Snape needed. Snape would come after them individually, which was probably a far worse situation to be in. Harry could visualise in his minds-eye four corpses floating face down in the great lake - 4 inexplicable deaths.

Ron said glumly. "We are so dead."

"You don't say." Harry echoed.

Ron asked. "But do we _need_ to return the bottle? What if Snape doesn't notice it's gone?" It was a decent point Ron raised but Harry knew the answer to it immediately, when he placed his thumb pad firmly on the neck of the glass bottle. He had a hunch Snape would have cast this protective spell. He could feel the distinctive pulse of a tracing charm. "We'll have to return it. It's being _traced_. If Snape realises this is missing, he won't need McGonagall to tell him where to find it...or who's responsible. We need to return this before we start the run."

Fred said grimly. "We don't have time to return it before then."

"This has to go back to the store cupboard before Snape finds out its missing and (_more importantly)_ before McGonagall finds out what it is!" Harry implored.

George barked. "And how's that going to happen? Have you got a fairy godmother up your sleeve Harry?"

Harry felt like kicking something across the room. Right now, it was George. "No! But I'm just telling you what we need to do!"

"We need a plan." Fred said.

Harry's frustrated gaze tracked between the door where the professor was due to make her entrance and the three bottles on the table, his teeth making red tell tale marks on his lower lip.

"Harry?" Ron interrupted his thoughts. "Harry? What are we going to do?"

The clock chimed. Everyone jumped out of their skins. Fred gulped and whispered into George's ear. George shook his head in reply. "No, it wouldn't work."

They _really_ needed a plan. A swift and decisive plan of action. Harry rubbed his temples in growing desperation. Where was Hermione when you needed her?

Harry listened for the overdue clacking of footsteps in the corridor, his eyes trained on the door handle.

Fred swore under his breath. The clock's rhythmical ticking continued.

Ron blurted out. "I think we should just tell McGonagall the truth."

George yelped. "Are you mad?"

"But –"

"She just gave enough detentions for the next two years and you want to go to her for a confession?" George asked scathingly.

Harry held a hand for silence. He had heard it. The first clack. "She's coming done the corridor." George put his head in his hands. Thirty steps separated McGonagall from the detention room.

29. Think Harry, think!

"Fred!" Harry called. "Unscrew the lid of the firewhisky bottles."

"Do you have a plan?" Fred shouted.

_No, Harry thought. Just improvising. 28._

George retorted. "The firewhisky is not the problem right now!"

27. This was not the time for argument. "Just do it!" Harry roared. 26.

"Pass it here!" Ron caught the bottle deftly from Fred's throw and strained on the bottle top, clasping it in a thick fist. It was not turning. Damn! "How do you open this?" 25. He uttered a string of profanities. "Anyone got a wand?" 24

Harry pulled his out his left pocket, passing it to George who gave it to Ron. Ron muttered an incantation.

"Do it for this as well." George held out the second firewhisky bottle.

He repeated the spell. 23. The bottle tops came loose with ease. Ron held the alcoholic beverage in one hand. "Well now what?" He asked Harry.

"Drink it." Harry ordered.

"Drink it?" Ron and George said simultaneously, 2 pairs of eyebrows shot skywards to be swallowed by red manes. 22.

Harry explained. "There isn't a sink in this room we can pour the firewhisky down ...and out of the four of us, you two are the heavyweights. 21.20.

"Bloody hell." George rolled. "I'll pass out in front of the McGonagall if I drink all of this!"

"No." Harry clarified. "Just a quarter of it." He tapped the bottle, indicating the desired level.

19."Whatever you say." 18. Ron added rather unconvincingly in a strangled tone of voice, before tipping his bottled to his mouth in unison with his brother. "We're following _your_ plan."

George smacked his lips before his second generous swig of the bottle. "It's all on your head Potter!" He leered.

_Godammit, it wasn't a plan!_ 17. 16. Planning was usually... oh forget Hermione! 15.

14. "Fred, open the veritaserum bottle."

McGonagall was right in thinking that obedience was unfamiliar word for Weasley brothers. "You better know what you're doing, Harry." Fred murmured, watching with anxiety as Harry motioned George and Ron to return the two fire whiskies to him after they had downed the required amount. Ron looked queasy, and swayed on his feet.

Harry scrunched up his eyelids and pleaded to Heaven that his best friend could hold himself together. 13, 12, 11. Hunched over, with his back to the door, the Boy who lived took the open veritaserum bottle and without spilling, poured the colourless and odourless liquid equally into the 2 alcoholic bottles. He did not dare breathe or look away until the last drops of veritaserum fell. 10, 9, 8, 7. When it was done, his shoulders sagged with relief. But it wasn't over. 6. "Close the bottles and seal them." He said brusquely. "McGonagall mustn't know that they've been tampered with."

5. The other three boys who had remained silent till now looked at him quizzically. Fred spoke. "The blue bottle's empty. Isn't that going to look odd?"

Harry knew that Fred was not about to like what he was about to say next. 4. "I know. But it's not going to stay empty...Hand me your cologne." 4.

Fred's eyes widened.

3. No, Harry didn't think he liked that request. "I know it's in your pocket. We need it and you're not going to be necking Angelina tonight. Please give me your cologne." He added the word please deliberately. _Come on Fred, we don't have time. I'm begging you here.2._

It wasn't a flat refusal. To be fair, Fred was always less obstinate than George. He replied indignantly. "Do you know how much I paid for it?"

Harry said between gritted teeth. "I'll pay you back." _Fred, if you mess this up, it's really on your head!_

Reluctantly, the stone-faced twin slid a hand into his trouser pocket, tugging it out and tossing it Harry the cologne bottle. Harry got to work immediately, his heart hammering in his ribcage. Twice the cologne nearly slipped out his clammy fingers. Could this get any worse, Harry thought. His head was ready to explode.

Ron yelped, interrupting. "SHIT! She's outside the door! I can hear her talking to Filch!"

Harry nearly dropped the bottle.

"I'll go and hold her up!" George took off at a sprint, crashing and knocking into the two chairs on the ground. They heard the door creak and shut after him. And then they heard more voices and shouts.

"Come on Harry." Ron urged. "She's outside!"

"I heard you!" Harry grunted.

Ron crossed his arms across his body, mouth clamped shut. He looked positively ill. "What are we going to say to McGonagall? What's the story?" They had to think of something clever in the space of microseconds.

Harry scrambled for an answer, jolting the bottle held in his grasp as he tried to come up with something. "Err..." It's wasn't that he didn't have a plan. "Fred, catch!" Harry turned and threw the empty cologne bottle at Fred who caught it one handed and stuffed it into his pocket. The blue bottle was only half full. With his wand, Harry uttered a quick spell to heat the liquid, allowing it expand until it filled the whole bottle. Now, the professor would not have cause to suspect! Ron helped arrange the bottles in the same places as they were before, breathing and heart rate all over the place. Harry still had no idea how the plan was going to work, even though they were now fully committed to it. Because the centrepiece of said plan was a rather volatile character who needed a lot of persuasion, which needed a lot of time, and oh Merlin... this ship was going to sink before it even set sail.

Fred picked up the chairs that George knocked over, thrusting behind their respective desks. Done! The room was back in order. "What are we going to say, Harry?" Ron's voice quavered, pressing him for an answer.

The door opened.

* * *

><p>McGonagall pulled her glasses with one tapering finger from the bridge of her nose somewhere close to the tip. Maybe because Harry had been sweating so much, the dehydration had addled his brain into thinking it was a very long journey of bumps and ridges. Ron chose that precise moment to brush shoulders with him. Alarmed, Fred stuck out an arm and pulled his brother back into line.<p>

"So what you're telling me is that this bottle." McGonagall lifted VS millimetres off her desk. "Does not contain firewhisky or any form of alcohol." She looked from one boy to the next till they were nodding in unison. "Okay." She put the bottle back onto her desk. "And you're saying this is a perfume bottle, Mr Potter?" She confirmed.

Harry directly addressed, began to feel a little nauseous. "Yes." He stammered, finding his voice eventually.

McGonagall pursed her lips thoughtfully, before addressing the other 3 delinquents. "Do you all agree with Mr Potter on the accusation that this bottle belongs to Hermione Granger?

Harry really needed backup at this point, as a suffocating and prolonged silence ensued. He turned round to glare at the other boys. _Come on!_ Say something. The three boys nodded somewhat queasily, unable to commit a verbal response. Incomprehensible muttering broke out at once. Fortunately that was enough to satisfy McGonagall.

But her tone immediately hardened. "Then how was it that Hermione Granger did not recognise her own perfume bottle when George Weasley held it above the entire Gryffindor common room?"

Harry stalled. Err...good point. Then a light bulb moment – Harry gushed to explain. "Professor, we tore off the label so that she wouldn't recognise it. The bottle had a large label on the middle of the bottle."

"You see Professor." George said. "Fred and I misplaced the real prize."

The unimpressed professor raised BOTH eyebrows. Harry winced. Now it appeared that they had stolen Hermione Granger's perfume bottle, which would probably add another detention onto the end of the set they already had. But McGonagall simply pursed her lips and stayed silent. Harry took it as a good sign/ small mercy. When McGonagall pushed her spectacled back onto her nose bridge Harry took it as another good sign – it wasn't. "Ronald Weasley, what does VS stand for?"

Ron bit his lips. _Come on_ Harry said under his breath, _just say it! Say what I told you?_

Ron spluttered. "Victoria's chamber."

"Chamber?" McGonagall asked.

"Secrets - I mean secrets!"

"And who is this Victoria, Mr Weasley?" The Professor asked.

Fred and George shot each other looks of confusion.

Ron took the opportunity to mouth at Harry. _Harry, who is she?_

Harry spoke up. "Victoria's secret's is a well known brand of muggle perfume."

"I see, and Hermione granger is partial to this brand of perfume?" She unscrewed the lid of the bottle and bent to sniff...at potent male cologne. "Oh my!" she clutched her temples.

Fred smiled. "A light and fruity mix with a bit of vanilla."

McGonagall looked as though she was about to fall out her chair. She clutched the side of the table for support. "Send for Granger immediately."

Harry could not help but wince as Hermione came through the door. Her cheeks were puffed red and a quarter of her hair had already fallen out of that haphazardly arranged bun on the top of her head. She slumped against the door handle. "Professor?" She gasped. But her gaze slid sideways and landed on Harry. Within a heartbeat they had narrowed to slits. She knew. She knew that he had implicated her some harebrained scheme to get them out of trouble, She knew that Harry had deftly shifted all the blame onto her shoulders and she knew that that she was so far involved this 'business' that she had to be the one to fix things to save everyone's skin. And lastly, Hermione Granger knew she was going to strangle harry Potter with her bare hands given the opportunity and she had arrived at **that** conclusion in microseconds.

Shuffling sounds from behind the door told him she had not come alone. Harry could make out Angelina, possibly Katie, Parvati and Ginny. He could not quite hear Lavender but regardless, Hermione had brought with her an army.

_Royally screwed_ were the words written on Ron's face.

* * *

><p>"Miss Granger!"<p>

Hermione tore her attention from Harry Potter. "Professor!" Her voice quavered, now fearful for reasons she didn't know. Professor took several long moments to respond, poring over her personal timetables to slot in the boys' detentions. Hermione was gradually looking paler.

Ron whispered into Harry's ear. "Is she breathing alright?"

"Miss Granger? The professor called out a second time.

Hermione took a shaky step forward.

Ron said. "I don't think she can pull this off."

"Shut up!" Harry snapped. She had to for their sakes.

Professor McGonagall looked up from the rota, scrutinising Hermione's lack of stability – which didn't do anything good for Hermione's worsening gait. "Miss Granger," Her tone softened. "I would like to apologise for dragging you out of bed at this hour."

Hermione stopped and looked at her quizzically.

"In fact, I believe that Mr Potter has something to return to you and apologise for."

The full intensity of Hermione's glare landed on Harry. Harry took a few steps backwards and pulled VS off the teacher's desk and began to approach his quarry.

Her eyebrows shot up as if to say. _What are you doing?_

Harry coughed into a fist conspicuously. "Play along."

She looked at him with apprehension_. Play along with what?_

Tensteps away from her, Harry thrusted the bottle out in front of him._ Here you go Hermione, here's a clue._

_Not mine._ She was grinding her back teeth, nostril flaring. _That is not mine._

Harry put his palms together with the bottle between them. "Please." His eyes pleaded. _I need this favour just this once._

She half shook her head.

"I can explain." He croaked.

McGonagall called out. "I asked you to apologise Mr Potter! Explanations can come later."

Okay Harry. Start again. Big breath. "I'm sorry." Harry wheezed at Hermione. "For stealing your perfume." They were now standing in front of each other. _TAKE IT!_ He pushed the bottle forwards.

She pushed it back. _No thank you!_

The hairs rose on the back of his neck, a good sign that the professor was watching his every move and getting more suspicious at Hermione's lack of compliance.

He tried a different tactic. "It's veritaserum, from Snape's office." Harry blurted. _Please be a good friend._

Her jaw dropped. He hurriedly explained everything, throwing in "I'm so sorry Hermione!" every time Hermione opened her mouth to explode and throwing off McGonagall's growing interest in their conversation.

She pried the bottle from his hand when she had heard enough. "So you want me to take this bottle back to Snape's office at this time of night and expect me to get out without Snape and entire slytherin house noticing me! I can't believe you Harry! How can you ask me to do that?"

"Well, I'm asking you because my life is on the line here."

She stomped her foot. "One question – How?"

"My invisibility cloak is in my trunk in the boys dorms." He added in a raised tone. "I wanted to return it you before the run! I know you're disappointed in me!"

"I don't even know the password to the dungeon." Hermione folded her arms across her chest and said defiantly. "It's a no."

Harry's said sharply. "What do you mean it's a no?" _I thought we'd come to some understanding here!_ He paused. "Err...so you won't forgive me?"

"Yeah you heard me. I'm not doing it."

"You don't have a choice." Harry countered. "The bottle has a tracing charm. Snape's will notice it's gone far sooner that you think. There's a room of witnesses here including professor McGonagall who believe this perfume belongs to you so technically. So do yourself a favour and take it!" He knew he had dragged her into this herself – but now was not the time for remorse.

"You bastard!"

"Mind your language, Granger!" McGonagall interrupted.

"Just take it." Harry ordered.

She growled. "I hate you."

Harry almost smiled. "I owe you. You're amazing."

"Oh Fred!" McGonagall asked. "Would you mind leaving the 2 firewhisky bottles on the window ledge outside this classroom for Mr Filch to collect? Thank you." She dismissed him. Fred sighed and did as he was told, pushing past both Harry and Hermione.

"I'm going to kill you when this is over." Hermione snarled under her breath.

"Deal." Harry smirked.

"And you owe me."

"Fine." He said, openly relieved. She was willing.

"Professor!" Hermione called, taking her leave. "Can I go now?"

"You may leave Granger. Thank you." The door closed silently behind Hermione as she followed Fred out.

* * *

><p>Ron said to George. "It's all in Hermione's hands now."<p>

"She'll be fine." He replied. "She's smart. She'll find a way."

Ron clarified. "The actual tracing charm is on the bottle isn't it and not the actual fluid?"

"I hope so," said George. "Otherwise Snape is going to head straight to Filch's office and blast him into the middle of next week." He chuckled. "Yes, the spell is definitely on the bottle!" He reassured. "As long as the bottle goes back to the store cupboard it doesn't actually matter where the veritaserum goes."

Ron countered. "But this is going to fall to pieces if Filch samples the firewhisky. He'll be spilling out all his secrets like a bloody fountain." He enunciated the last five words. "Snape is going to know."

"Pray for a bit of luck, Ron." George said, "But what worries me is if Hermione puts the potion back and Snape uses it on someone. He'll force them to drink cologne."

Ron cringed. "I'd like to think that's not my problem." Ron let out a premature sigh of relief. At that precise moment a lightning bolt struck through the window. He shot a look at McGonagall. "Professor, you can't be serious about the run."

She lowered her glasses from her nose bridge for the second time that night. "Oh but I am, Mr Weasley."

* * *

><p>Hermione faced the girls. "What's going on?" They crowded around her.<p>

Angelina screamed. "Oh my God, how did you get that? Did McGonagall give it to you?"

Great. Hermione rolled her eyes. It was time for more explanations. She told them the back-story as to how Fred and George acquired the veritaserum and told them what Harry expected of her. However, she had not expected their reaction – the squeals, shrieks, the chorus of oohs and ahhs.

"This is serious, ladies. We're not going to the slytherin common rooms to spy on the boys!" Hermione shrieked.

"There's nothing wrong with looking!" Angelina said, loping an arm over Katie Bell's shoulder and started walking.

Count me in!" Ginny chirped. Katie Bell high-fived her and pulled her into a one armed embrace.

"Where are you going?" Hermione called after the trio.

Parvati said smoothly. "There is no way you guys are leaving without me."

"What about Lavender?" Hermione retorted as Parvati passed her by.

"She's throwing up in the girl's toilets." Parvati stated as if it was hardly of any importance. She hooked an arm through Ginny's. "People! This is going to be so much fun! Can we leave now?"

"No wait!" Hermione had to take control of this situation fast. She clutched her temples. "Look, this isn't a game. We can't just all go marching into the slytherin common rooms. I'm not dragging you guys into this! Ginny- you have a boyfriend!" Hermione tried one last time. "We can only fit three people under Harry's invisibility cloak! Hello? Is anyone listening to me?"

Angelina interjected, "Hey Hermione, you never told me your slytherin crush."

"That's beside the point." Hermione said haughtily.

Parvati asked. "Are you sure you don't have one slytherin guilty pleasure? You never commit to anything when Lavender and I initiate boy-talk."

_For_ _good reason – because none of you would let it slide in a millennia if I actually gave you a name_. "I don't have a slytherin crush," Hermione lied outrageously.

"Sure you don't!" Angelina said caustically. "Come on Hermione, every Gryffindor girl has a slytherin bad boy itch she would love to get scratched."

"I think Hermione prefers Ravenclaws." Katie surmised sympathetically. "There are fewer pureblood elitists in that house."

"Hmm." Hermione shrugged half heartedly.

"Don't you think she would look cute with Terry Boot?" Katie said.

_They had no idea._ Fortunately for Hermione, the subject was soon dropped.

So it was settled. Hermione Granger was returning the veritaserum with 4 giddy, hormonally charged Gryffindor females. And they had 2 other travelling companions join them, courtesy of Angelina – the firewhisky bottles that Fred had left for Filch and Filch had yet to confiscate. And according to Angelina, they were about to have a party that would beat anything and everything Fred and George organised.

Thirty minutes later, following a quick detour to the Gryffindor tower, the girls found themselves cross legged or squatting on the floor facing an uninspiring wall of the Hogwarts cellar. Angelina was convinced of all the walls, this one was the entrance, but no one had a clue about how to get past the said wall into the slytherin dungeons. Angelina, Katie and Parvati were huddled underneath the invisibility cloak and sat directly facing the entrance. Hermione and Ginny had to contend themselves with hiding in an alcove a short distance away.

Katie sighed deeply, head resting on Angelina. "We've been sat here for over half an hour and I can't believe no one has actually left or gone into the dungeons."

"Maybe it's too early." Angelina stated wrapping the cloak more firmly around them. "It can't be any later than half twelve."

Katie insisted. "There has to be at least one slytherin prefect whose finished rounds."

"I thought this was the house that gets laid the most." Ginny said.

"GINNY, SHUT UP!" A chorus of voices sounded from under the invisibility cloak. Anybody walking past the dungeons at this moment would have heard a lot of noise and seen nothing.

"I think they must have a rule about in house laying."Hermione said, squirming for room in the alcove.

Ginny snapped. "What are you doing?" as their shoulders knocked for the third time.

Hermione was equally low on patience. "Trying to breathe!"Hermione felt something poke into her ribs. "Ginny can you hold the firewhisky bottle at a different angle?

"Is upside down better?" Ginny replied sarcastically.

"Ha ha, that's very funny." Hermione snarled.

"Is Pav asleep?" Ginny called out much to the despair of all the other girls.

Angelina swore. "Weasley, why don't shout a bit louder and wake up the whole of slytherin?"

"Ginny, what is it?" A highly irritated Parvati yawned on the other side of Katie Bell.

"Do you still have the veritaserum?" Ginny shouted.

Parvati let out a muted scream. "No, it walked off on its little legs while I was napping!" She added in an undertone. "And I wish you would do the same too!"

Angelina tried to restore some sense of order. "Girls remember we're in position. Can we just stop talking please?"

Ginny asked. "So what's the plan again?"

Hermione nearly screamed. "Ginny, would you pay attention! If someone opens the door, the girls under the cloak go in with them and they'll open the door from the inside for us when it's safe – but we have to be ready for...OUCH!"

Ginny hiccupped. "Sorry."

Angelina swore. "Bloody hell! Hermione, is she drinking already? Can you just take the bottle off her?

"It's really not that simple." Hermione's voice quavered.

"Bring the firewhisky here for Merlin's sake!" Angelina ordered.

Katie stopped them. "Angelina, we don't have room for three girls and three bottles under the cloak. It will really slow us down."

"It doesn't matter." Angelina said brusquely. "Hermione, hurry up!"

Hermione grated. "Ginny, let go!" she wrenched the glass bottle out of her best friends iron grip and elbowed her way around of the alcove, twisting like a contortionist until she was free. She took a deep breath to fill her lungs, not really concerned about the pin drop silence. She straightened and strained to see where the three girls under the invisibility cloak might be sitting. You would think they'd have the manners to remove the cloak for a few seconds so she could see where they were.

"Granger?"

She spun sharply on her heel to face Draco Malfoy.

* * *

><p><strong>I am on hols so have more time to devote to my writing, so can promise you speedier updates. Sorry for the delay in updating. NV<strong>


	10. Islands of Grey

**AN: Thank you readers for your patience. Thanks to my three wonderful guest reviewers. The story is far from over. This chapter is quite a serious one. Wish you all a happy new year. And enjoy.**

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><p>Hermione did not know long she could keep staring at Draco Malfoy, slack jawed, open mouthed and eyes bulging. It was his low pitched drawl that brought her back to her senses.<p>

"I asked you a question. Granger, what the hell are you doing here?" He pushed off his back foot towards her and wobbled mid-step.

She stepped back.

He groaned, bringing a hand to clutch at his temples. "Well?" A bottle clinked as he brought his other arm through the entrance. Hermione put two and two together; shaky unsteady steps, glazed red eyes and a close to being empty firewhisky bottle. Perhaps she could work this to her advantage. She mustered as much conviction into her next words. "Listen to yourself, Malfoy. What would I be doing here anyway? A Gryffindor outside the slytherin dungeons! You have obviously been drinking too much and now you're hallucinating." She admonished. "Get a grip!"

Malfoy was not buying into it. He put a hand out to swipe at her. Reacting swiftly, she stepped back and to the side. "Don't try to pull some shit on me! Tell me what you're doing here."

She countered, "In truth I'm tucked up in bed in the Gryffindor dorms. If I'm festering in some corner of your mind, I'll be wherever you are. Did you think of that?" Her finger reached into her robes, grappling for her wand between the folds of fabric, trying to maintain some semblance of composure.

"You're real!" He said in a low simmering voice. "I know you are real!" He pointed at her. The bottle slid from his hold and smashed onto the ground into five pieces and glittering glass dust.

Her pulse kicked up a notch.

"If you don't tell me what your plan is here, I'll hex you into the middle of next week!" It was not an empty threat.

Her fingers closed around her wand and tugged it lose from her pocket.

"It's all a dream, Draco!" She laughed.

"Dreaming of a Mudblood! Not likely!" Malfoy snarled.

Hermione swayed from the verbal slap. Then again, she hadn't quite recovered from the first one. "Hex me then! I promise you the curses will pass straight through your pillow." She was tying her tongue in knots and sealing her fate with it.

"Just watch me, Granger!"

So when the long overdue tug on the back of her skirt came instructing her to duck, Hermione didn't think twice about it. She threw herself into the floor, scraping her knees as she pulled them into chest and rolled over her spine and out of harm's way. "Reparo!" She shouted. The glass bottle righted itself in the entranceway but not fast enough to stop the door from shutting. Damn! Had Malfoy noticed? No, he looked preoccupied and shell shocked. The space where Hermione had stood was now taken up by three detached and floating hands, each one carrying a wand. Before Draco had time to pull out his own wand, a salvo of muffled screams hit him straight in the chest.

"_**Stupefy!"**_

"_**Obliviate!"**_

"_**Jelly legs!"**_

Ninety kilograms worth of Draco Malfoy fell in slow motion, a growing shadow that ploughed face forwards into the cobblestone floor, with arms by his side. The rush of blood in her ears meant that sound did not register but in the pin drop silence that followed _after_ the fall...it had to have been very loud.

Ginny peeped her head around the alcove at Draco's still and ghostly form. "Is he dead?"

Angelina ripped the cloak's hood offer her head. She let out a long breath, hand on heart. "Oh my God! That was so close."

"Just breathe," Katie instructed.

Parvati fanned herself. "Are you okay Hermione?"

Hermione rushed to get her breath back as she stood up, every joint clicking in her ascent. "Crabbe and Goyle!" She panted. She gestured to the entrance. "They won't be far away." It took a few seconds for the girls to resume coordinated lung ventilation and speech. As soon as she regained both, Angelina started issuing orders. "We've got to move him. Now!"

Parvati pointed to the alcove. Angelina seized an arm while Katy took hold of the other. All the girls ran into help and proceeded to lug Malfoy, who was no light weight. He had plenty of bruises come tomorrow, Hermione thought.

"Rosettes for a poodle." Angelina answered, eyes twinkling in bitter humour. She folded his legs up, tucking him into the narrow space.

"That's perfect." Parvati said.

Katy wiped seat off her brow. "Shall we drape the cloak over him?" It was a sensible idea; the longer Draco went unnoticed the better.

"No." Hermione interjected. "We need it more than he does. And who's to say he won't come round sooner than we expect?"

Parvati nodded. "You're right. We'd be giving him an invisibility cloak as an early Christmas present."

Harry would not be pleased, Hermione thought. But then again, this was Harry's mess that she had been dragged into. Why should she give a damn over what pleased Harry?

Angelina squatted down beside Malfoy and pinched his cheek hard. "No response. He's out cold."

"Well I did stun him!" Pav said hotly.

"I'm not saying that you didn't!"

Katy interrupted. "How many spells did we hit him with?" Her tone laced with concern. Malfoy's lips were turning an unpleasant shade of blue.

"He is cyanosed." Hermione observed.

"Enough spells." Angelina deadpanned. She rose to standing and noted the closed doorway, ignoring Hermione's disappointed sigh. "Sticking with same plan. Katy, Pav and I will be under the cloak. As soon as Tweedle dum and Tweedle dee land on the scene, we'll follow them inside. Mione and Ginny – stay in the alcove until we open the door from the inside.

"Tweedle dum?" Ginny said perplexed.

"Crabbe and Goyle!" Pav snapped. "Honestly, keep up carrot-top!"

"Cut it out, the pair of you!" Angelina growled.

Hermione motioned to the firewhisky bottle in her hands. "Do you still want this, Angelina?"

Katy said. "No you better keep it Hermione. And be careful!"

"Come on!" Angelina ordered brusquely. "Get in positions, now"

Two minutes later, the stones in the wall rolled silently, revealing the oak door, a tall chubby male stepped into sight. His head turned, scanning the empty corridor outside for signs of life. _For signs of Draco _whom Hermione and Ginny were currently perched on. Sadly, without stilettos, Hermione thought. Her breath hitched as Crabbe stepped over the glass bottle by the door. Under the cloak, Angelina gritted her teeth. "Okay, Ladies. We're moving in."

* * *

><p>It did not come as a huge shock when Blaise stormed out of their room. He lifted himself clean off the ground, and turned sharply out of the room like a gentleman. A very classy exit - if he hadn't battered the door down with his left shoulder before he reached for the door knob. When Blaise slammed the door behind himself, he practically wrenched it off its hinges and hurled the detached door back onto the frame. Steps that thundered in the corridor were quick to fade to distant pattering like rain. Blaise had been in such a hurry to leave, he had forgotten to grab a set of robes. Theo exhaled deeply and sank further into the headboard. After 5 unaccounted minutes of staring unseeingly at the wall in front of him, he snapped his notebook shut and brought his knees up, allowing the notes to slide off his lap. The book landed on its spine with a gentle clunk. The flapping pages fell into flustered disarray. He didn't give a damn. Theo had had a shit day. He did not need to analyse why. He closed his eyes and counted to ten taking long steadying breaths. His hands wandered to his temples, massaging them in smooth unending circles. Some thirty minutes later his chest rose and fell evenly in REM sleep.<p>

Even sleep was not kind to him. Blaise made several impromptu appearances to this point it was becoming a bad joke. "Can you just leave me alone? You're following me everywhere."

Dream Blaise shrugged. "Not my fault."

"I thought we weren't on talking terms." Theo clarified. This was getting too complicated for him. He could still feel the alcohol swirling round inside his skull.

"We're not." Blaise snapped.

"So..." Theo questioned. "Shouldn't you be somewhere right now?"

Dream Blaise looked at him quizzically.

Theo had to clarify himself. "Shouldn't you be entertaining female company right now? It's what you normally do when you are licking your wounds- find the nearest willing female and...And screw them."

Blaise laughed softly. "Say the word sex, Theo. Get with the times. And as for licking, my willing female usually does it for me...and more."

"I don't need to hear." Theo bit out.

"Jealous?" Dream Blaise perched himself comfortably on Theo's bed, forcing him to shift to make room. "Cause you never experienced..."

Theo interrupted heatedly. "How do you know that I haven't already experienced."

Blaise snorted. " Please! You? An uptight, arrogant prick – aren't you planning to stay celibate for life?" Without warning, Blaise reached for Theo's arm.

He withdrew it reflexively and fixed his best get-back- glare on Blaise.

"There you go." Triumph was stamped all over Blaise' face. "You can't stand being touched. Deny it all you want but you know I've just proven it to you. Imagine the horror of having to shake hands with anyone, accidently brush shoulders with anyone, give your grandmother a hug." He said and shuddered dramatically. "So traumatic! And to offer yourself to a lover- unthinkable!"

"You'd know all about offering, wouldn't you?" _Slag!_

Blaise ignored him. "I can't understand how you can go on living, Theo! I mean, the way you are – you can't even have sex."

Theo bristled. "Pittance from Blaise Zabini- slytherin house's finest man-whore - what next?"

Blaise smiled sympathetically at the reference. "Call me a whore if you want to. I'd rather be that than a monk."

Theo said. "I told you before; I am not a virgin..." Theo drew himself short. It almost sounded odd for a boy to refer to himself as a virgin- it was the sort of label that applied to girls like Bulstrode, Granger and ... that was about it.

Blaise interrupted. "Theo, that's just hard for me to believe and trust me I'm not the only one. I accept that you are just different and you don't give much of yourself away."

"There's nothing wrong with that." Theo countered. "You give too much away."

"To whom are you referring?"

Theo said brazenly. "Your mother."

"She's dead."

"She's been dead for nearly a year and still you think of her. She _killed_ your father."

Blaise stilled. "Theo, she didn't kill my _real_ father. I told you this back in fifth year."

_Oh, had Theo ever forgotten?_ He had nearly regurgitated his dinner at Blaise's revelation in fifth year. They had been sitting playing wizard's chess in the common room. He had said it in such a measured tone, his white knight taking out Theo's bishop in one fell swoop. _"I think you should know something about me, Theo."_ Blaise knew the weight of his words yet he threw them like stones.

_**I think you should know that I was born out of wedlock. I think you should know about my muggle father. At least I think he was muggle. I guess that would make me a muggle's bastard son. Does that make me a half blood?**_

Theo couldn't remember how he had contained his shock from leaking out onto his features that night. His fingers shook as he moved a pawn forwards.

It was Blaise' turn now. The white queen moved 7 squares diagonally, smashing into Theo's castle.

Theo swallowed past the constriction in his throat_." Muggle spawn may be good enough for the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs but they are not fit to wipe the floors of Slytherin house. Everything would change for you if you were indeed a half blood._

"_Everything_?" Blaise had fixed him with a hard stare.

"_Yes_." Theo told him resolutely. "_You shouldn't have told me. You shouldn't have told anyone." _Had he thought Theo's support would give him some sort of immunity? Had Blaise wanted Theo to tell the other boys on his behalf? _"I am a Nott." _What possessed you to tell me in the first place? The Nott family hailed from purer bloodlines that poured ditchwater on the Malfoys.

Blaise' response had been one of total detachment. He threw the ball into Theo's court and said play. _"So what will you do, now?"_

What? Theo had not been caught off guard for a long time. When he found his voice, he said. _"Why would I need to do anything? It's your secret."_

_"It was my secret. But now I have told you. So tell me Theo, what will you do now?"_

Wracked with indecision for weeks afterwards, Theo oscillated between wanting to make the knowledge public and not wanting to spill. Nott recognised a strong responsibility to his pureblood peers to inform them of Zabini's suspicions but without hard evidence to substantiate his claims, for example a name for the muggle father, he could not raise perhaps he should have pressed Blaise harder for a name – any muggle name? Theo shook his head. It would have been opening a can of worms and why would anyone with pureblood association want to bring up such a disturbing topic. (Not that it ever stopped Blaise.) If he spoke out without supporting evidence, he would be slandering the Zabini family name and soiling his family's reputation with little to gain. No, he decided after much debate that was not the appropriate line of action.

He could not however ignore it. Some information was impossible to unlearn. Had it been his secret and his father a ...a whatever, Theo would have taken the knowledge with him to the grave. He would never have placed the burden of such truths on a fellow pureblood and expected their silence. What was worse was Blaise had no expectations of him. He talked about muggles freely in private in their room, musing on how they worked, ate, played and how they lived out their days. He never asked for Theo's discretion. He probably guessed that all the free information and muggle fascination was providing ample arsenal for Nott should Blaise turn against him. That didn't stop him talking about it either. Initially had been the only reason that Theo had listened to Blaise' ramblings about pubs, fishing and Sunday lunches.

And now with passing months it wasn't just Blaise' secret. It had become Theo's as well. A gnawing uncomfortable truth that a mere mention of would make bile rise into Theo's mouth. Being privy to information that difficult to disprove and impossible to deny, some days made him angry. If the knowledge ever reached his father that Theo associated with a self confessed half blood, his father would disinherit him, sell their family estates (probably to the Malfoys) and drink himself to death. It was no laughing matter. As for Zabini- he had plenty of Italian cousins to play kings and queens on his future assets.

But this talk, this information Theo vowed would stay between them. Imposing rules on Zabini was as effective as imposing rules on toddlers. However rules were necessary. Tongues could not afford to loosen over firewhisky. Other acquaintances and budding friendships could not be encouraged or tolerated. Out-of-house, extracurricular activities with females of lesser blood were to stop on his watch. Any pillow talk would destroy them both. Theo would rue the day he failed to relay the revelation to his peers. Theo recognised his delay in informing his peers had cost him. Blaise's Achilles heel was now his own. Ally or not - He would sooner put Blaise in the ground in a suit and shoes, than go barefoot running with Blaise and show the world. As far as Theo was concerned, Blaise was pureblood elite, regardless of Blaise' _confusion_. That was how they presented themselves to the wizarding world and to their house.

His judgement of late - Theo's romp with half blood Tracey Davis; his drinking earlier in the evening would not go without due reflection. Had the thought crossed his mind that if he ditched Blaise' partnership altogether, there would be far fewer complications in his life. Had he? He would be lying if he said he had not. His alliance with Zabini had been in its sapling stages in fifth year. It would have been easier then to pull a sapling out by its roots in fifth year but he had put it off. Saplings grew over time. Trees needed chopping.

Blaise snorted, bringing him back to the present which was...his dream? He was sure of this still being a dream. "I don't approve of some of my mother's decisions but I don't love her any less for her faults. In fact I have forgiven her. She wanted a better life for me."

"Did she tell you that?" Theo did not think it was possible to find a more selfish woman.

"I love her Theo." He said. So simple and frank with honesty and sincerity he didn't sound slytherin. "That's why I think of her. Anyone else?"

Now was his chance. Theo offered a second name. "Me."

The corner of Blaise' mouth lifted. "I haven't forgiven you yet."

"Do I need forgiveness from you?"

Blaise pondered on the thought. He said slowly. "Yes, I think you do. I think you want my forgiveness, you callous SOB." He imitated Theo's perfect British accent. "_I need nothing from you!_ - you crack me up sometimes!"

Their alliance strengthened into a solid partnership that served both of their interests but

Of late Theo noticed an increasing area of overlap or grey space where he considered what Blaise's interests were before making his own decisions. Sometimes Theo found himself taking action that brought about no personal benefit for him. It surprised him every time when Blaise reciprocated this unusual behaviour- often double or triple fold. He could only conclude that their partnership was shifting further into the grey space and further from black and white zones of self interests and manipulations. Merlin along knew how long Theo could sustain this shift for.

_I need nothing from you._

They hadn't been opponents in a long time. Not since fifth year had they played chess on the black and white chequered boards. He had no idea what held their alliance together. But it seemed _nothing_ had become a growing grey expanse.

"Anyone else?"

"Yes." Theo asked, steering the conversation as far from their non alliance as possible. "The girls."

"What all of them?" Blaise looked surprised. He made a show of counting on his fingers and before giving up. He laughed. But the smile dropped from his face and he became serious again. "Let me ask you a question."

"About what?" Theo said

"Tracey – you liked her."

Theo's face became stern and lined. "I don't want to talk about Tracey."

Blaise held up both hands in surrender. "Fine but I introduced her to you."

Theo pre-empted the next question. "If you can see every thought and every motive, you know everything there is to know about someone without any effort on your part and then you don't need to give yourself away. I didn't feel obliged to give Tracey anything. I realised a lot of things about of her in the space of seconds. I tried blocking it out but it was too much.

"When?" Blaise asked.

Theo shrugged and rolled his shoulders back. "At a party in the common room." _Yes, that party. _

"Was it when she touched you?"

Yes. It had been fine. Until she had loosed his tie and reached inside his shirt and all hell came rip roaring into him. Into his mind.

"Does touch hurt you?"

_What_. The question threw him off guard.

"Does touch actually cause you pain?" Blaise asked.

Theo couldn't believe he was hearing this and considering giving Blaise the truth. Well, if he was dreaming the whole incident, it did not matter either way. "I don't know." He stuttered uncharacteristically. "I think I am conditioned to expect pain on touch, so yes on most occasions. But the severity varies depending on the other person and the emotions behind their words."

Blaise mused. "If your Legilimens is weak and touch enhances it. Why not just undo the conditioning?"

Theo's tone hinted finality. "My _conditioning_ is not up for discussion."

* * *

><p>The door opened.<p>

Theo sprang up from the mattress, eyes opening too quickly to adjust to the light. He held a hand in front of his face as a shield, equally wary of this late night visitor.

"What do you want, Blaise?" He croaked, vocal cords rinsed with salt and gravel. He coughed unsuccessfully to clear them.

Blaise stood in the doorway, taut as wire. This usually spelled trouble. Theo glanced furtively in his lap. He spied his wand between the folds of duvet and noted its position in arms reach.

"Don't just stand there. Why don't you come in?" He called out. The other wizard shifted from side to side. Theo could sense reluctance on Blaise's part. Blaise did not want to be here. He thought of trying to reach out to his mind but Blaise, whom he had practiced on countless times, would sense his approach and counter it with a wand. No, he would not welcome the brief invasion. Theo cocked his head to the side realising something- Blaise was dressed in a set of robes which _almost_ fitted him. Warrington's robes or perhaps Montague? It was an indication of the length he would go to avoid Nott. He would rather borrow robes off a seventh year than return to collect his own from their shared room. This begged the question; why had Blaise returned?

"Is there something you need Blaise?" Theo said, anger rising. Do you need a gilded invite to vent to your satisfaction? Do you need permission to cross the threshold and enter the room? What do you want for Merlin sake?

"Flint sent me to get you." Blaise ground out.

Theo said icily. "Running errands for Flint already?"

"Fuck off."

Theo settled back down on the mattress. If Tooth fairy flint wanted to negotiate a diplomatic ceasefire he could wake up another student and do so. Theo was officially in bed and sleeping. "Blaise, you know me so well. So pass the same message onto Flint!" He turned over onto his side and snuggled under the duvet.

No sounds of retreat. The door did not shut and the light stayed on. It appeared an equally defiant Blaise was not going anywhere.

"Any other messages that need relaying?" Theo yawned.

"You have to come down to the common room. Everyone is waiting for you."

Nott snapped. "Whatever for?"

Blaise opened his mouth but sound followed after a moments delay. "We found Malfoy unconscious outside the dungeons."

"He shouldn't have drunk so much then." Nott muttered into his pillow.

"Pardon?"

"He should have held his drink better!" Theo shouted.

Blaise said coolly. "Malfoy had been stunned!" He paused. "We want to talk to you about it."

Theo stilled. And that was the real reason that Blaise had come back. He rolled onto his back and turned his head towards Blaise. "You think it was me?"

Blaise echoed his words. "Was it you?"

"I asked the question." Theo said, poised and intent on an answer.

Theo was too proud to defend himself against baseless accusations. Blaise held that long unflinching stare till his eyes were straining and Theo's expression became pained. "No." He breathed. "I don't believe it was you."

If Theo was relieved by the response he did not show any signs of it. "Does Flint plan to interrogate me in your place, then?"

Blaise asked, changing the topic. "Could you bring him round?"

"You want me to bring Malfoy round?"

"Yes." Blaise confirmed. "And I'll tell Flint it wasn't you."

He sat back up and swung a leg out of bed. Blaise signed inwardly at this 'progress' as Nott was showing sign of getting ready. "Accio." A comb flew to his outstretched hand. Theo raked the comb through his hair superficially, till his hair felt in place. "I don't need you to do that for me." He stopped. "But...thanks."

Blaise' lips twitched "It's not a problem." He handed Theo a set of robes off a hanger in their shared wardrobe. "Be down in five minutes."

"Blaise –wait!"

The Italian froze like a statue and turned as slowly as a revolving door in a hotel lobby. "Is there something you want, Nott?"

Nott let out a harsh breath. "I...I...I have no idea what you are thinking right now."

Coming from Nott, this was a shattering confession. A blunt admission of weakness. Even of defeat. Blaise said, choosing words with absolute care. "Then perhaps you should listen to what I say."

Nott shrugged. "People don't always say what they think."

Blaise smiled wryly. "I am not going to spare you the truth just because we're acquainted."

Not didn't laugh as intended. He looked torn on the verge of saying more and wanting to cut out his own tongue.

Blaise said encouragingly. "You'll have to tell me. I can't read minds."

"You've always been hard to read. "

_But you've been trying_ "Perhaps you are getting better at blocking out my thoughts." Blaise considered. Theo had promised. many months ago that he would not invade his mental privacy without consent. Today he realised that in cultivating and supporting their friendship, Theo had to do just that. Looking back, they had always been in tune with each other. Their conversations were serious, sincere or downright sarcastic. Conversations flowed easily. No small talk. He realised this was because of Theo's ability to reflect like a mirror. With brutal honesty he should show Blaise the dirt in his image, his weaknesses that needed hiding and a silent sincere appraisal of his strengths. Then again, Theo was listening to thoughts and not words. Blaise was superficial in his speech but his ideas were fixed.

He guessed that Theo was angrier with himself for going back on his word than Blaise ever would. In fact, Blaise was surprised at his own reaction or lack of one. "You do what you need to, Theo." Blaise heard himself say. "I'll wait outside."

The door closed for a second time that night. But this time Blaise had closed it, not slammed it shut.

Theo threw his head back on the headboard with a loud clunk and to the empty air around his head, he told. "That's the problem Blaise. I am losing it. Without my Legilimens, I am losing you."

* * *

><p>Everyone was assembled in the common room. Like Spanish inquisition, Theo thought ready to hold court and with their minds already decided on the sentence. He couldn't be bothered with this. He came down the stairs, with uncharacteristic swiftness two and three at a time, dodging Pansy as she launched herself at him.<p>

"What the fuck have you done Nott?" She screamed. "Have you seen Draco! "

He nodded sideways at Blaise, who took hold of a hysterical Pansy and gently pried her from Theo's coat tails. "Come one Pans. It wasn't him." They followed him down the stairs at a slower pace.

"Well who else could it be? Huh? Have you seen how terrible Draco looks?"

Blaise rushed to explain. "Theo's been in his room the whole time, sleeping off the firewhisky. I swear it Pans. I took him there!"

"No!" she continued to shriek and battered him with slaps as he tried to take her wrists and hold her.

The whole of sixth and seventh year girls and boys were gathered in all manner of night clothes and robes in the centre of the common room around a sofa. A sofa where the son of slytherin probably lay bleeding, Theo snorted. The sooner this day was over, the better. Shit was just getting worse the second. Several of the girls sat around the sofa fussing like hens. Crabbe stood a little off the side by the glowing green fireplace, features thrown into shadow, with Goyle resting a hand on his shoulder. Theo expected the pair would need the most convincing of his innocence.

As he descended the steps, the confused chatter fell into a hush. It was Tracey who stood up first from her vigil. Theo's expression closed off instantly. Her lips pursed, eyelashes batting to quell God-knows-what emotion. Theo was no expert on reading the female psyche but maybe Tracey was considering that if she had offered herself to Malfoy like a sacrificial straight-up slag, Malfoy probably wouldn't by lying like a broken doll, after a duel with the ex.

He stopped on the stairs, bringing Blaise who was carrying Pansy to a jerking halt. And their gaze met. She angled her chin towards the sofa/altar and back up at Nott, moist eyes baring emotion openly. He knew her better than she knew herself. And her delusions needed correcting. _Don't flatter yourself._ _I didn't fight him for you, Davis. _He fixed her with an icy clinical glare that cut through the mask to the core of her. Then he turned away. Grim satisfaction showed in his eyes briefly as he resumed course towards Malfoy. If he had looked again, he would have seen her hug her arms around herself and remove herself from the crowd. But he never looked.

Theo pushed his way through the students, with Blaise taking up the rear. He barrelled into Flint. The gorilla straightened up to his full height of six foot 4 - the same as Nott and bared his teeth. "You better have an explanation."

"For what?" Theo snapped. "Sleeping?"

He could feel the press of bodies as they moved closer in on him. Someone elbowed him in the stomach. Another push and Nott shoved back. He jostled into Flint. "If anything happens to Malfoy, I'll fucking deck you." The big man growled.

Shouts rang. "Hex him Flint!"

He argued. "I was in my room the whole time, Flint. Drink doesn't agree with me."

Flint ground his back teeth. "Yeah your drinking doesn't agree with me either."

"FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" Chants broke out, rising in tempo and volume.

"Nott , you jealous bastard!" A girl screamed.

Theo said smoothly, uncaring of whether he was heard or not over the cries. "The day a Nott becomes synonymous with bastard is the day the rest of you become Muggles."

The crowd was effectively silenced. The prince of slytherin had no reply – for once.

"Move aside, Flint." Theo said in the same steady tone. When Flint was slow to comply, an impatient Theo stepped around him and walked and knelt by the sofa. Students gathered closer around him. He coughed conspicuously at Daphne. "I need some room to breathe, Greengrass."

She scowled but got the message instantly.

Theo spent several minutes, examining Malfoy's unconscious form. After five minutes of total silence, he came to following conclusions. "Multiple attackers. Probably three. Bilateral fasciculations and absent knee jerk on lower limbs."

Blaise looked at him quizzically. As did the rest of the common room.

Nott translated. "Likely usage of jelly legs charm." he paused. "Malfoy's been stunned. The reason he is slow to come round is due to the excess alcohol in his system and any memory charms playing havoc with his cortical functioning."

"Do you think he would have seen his attackers?" Blaise asked.

"Possibly." Nott answered vaguely.

"Can you reverse the memory charm?"

He didn't answer with words. With utmost care, he pulled up Draco's upper eyelids and peered in. The pupils were dilated to the size of dinner plates. Atropine a chemical in Belladonna (deadly nightshade) had a similar effect, referencing McInnis _Herbology for Muggles_ textbook. He moved closer wading through realms of Draco's subconscious, and a murky grey curtain rose in front of him, blocking his passage. A definite memory charm. He moved closer and tried to pull the curtain to one side. His hand cut through the grey and it parted and resealed around his fingers like the dawn mist. His brow furrowed with concentration. There had to be a way of getting around this. He ran through a mental tick list of all the reversal spells he knew from weakest to strongest. The sixth on the list rustled the grey curtain. On a hunch, he repeated the spell and reached for the top left corner of the grey veil, pulling it down gently. He only hoped that Draco had the opportunity to see the attackers. If he didn't, Theo would have to retrace his steps, look for unusual identifiable scents, or worse still plod through his amygdale and examine for unusual emotional responses. At the end of all of that, he would have to connect his own dots, and build his own profile of the attaAs he was going through his options, the grey curtain fell silently in a heap. Theo stopped and looked ahead. The last person on Earth he would ever assume an attacker stood before him in freeze frame.

Hermione Granger.

Hisheart needed restarting. He shook himself violently. There had to be a mistake. It couldn't be. It he refused to believe it. She was not capable of destroying his potion without a crippling emotional backlash. How could she have the malice to hex Malfoy? But buck teeth and mouse brown hair stuffed in a lopsided bagel bun continued to stare right back at him, with eyes the size of dinner plates. Or maybe he was seeing the reflection of his eyes ? An unmistakable bottle of firewhisky swung freely from one hand and a wand was held firmly in the other, pointed in his direction. His logic screamed self defence. She wouldn't attack Draco otherwise - intentionally, or with provocation. Scratch the provocation part, her mother Theresa mentality hadn't stopped her from clawing Theo's face in the forest. What if she was intoxicated? The cogs worked furiously in Theo's brain. Granger's current mental state, whether or not it was alcohol induced, left her vulnerable. He had to find her and work out what the hell happened before someone else did. Lungs burning for air, he withdrew from Draco's mind, not before reinforcing the memory charm.

"Theo?" Blaise asked tentatively, when Theo had regained his faculties. "Theo did you see anything?"

Theo had to lie. At the same time, it had to believable. "Yes. " He said stoically. "It was Potter."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Ginny tried to manoevre herself into a sitting position, in a resident broom closet impossibly smaller than their alcove. Outiside, their shared broom coset, she could hear the slytherin riot growing louder.<strong>_

**_An anxious Hermione said,"We don't have an invisibilty cloak. We're not going to be able to leave without being seen. Ginny we are so screwed. The slytherins are searching every room, dorm and broom closet. They are going to find us!" She paused. "Are you even listening to me?" _**

**_"Nope."_**

**_"I can't believe we lost the others. girls. What if they're caught?" _**

**_Ginny replied. "Well they won't know where we are. So that works out in our favour."_**

**_"Ginny, if you don't stop moving, I'm going to start spitting out my own ribs. Ouch!"_**

**_"SHUSH!"_**

**_"Can't breathe here." Hermione choked._**

**_"Got it."_**

**_"What?" Hermione asked wearily. Ginny reaching over herself like a contortionist, dropped a heavy glass bottle in Hermione's lap. More firewhisky._**

**_"What do I need this for?" Hermione said. _**

**_Ginny winked. "For some Dutch Courage."_**


	11. The Fallout

**A/N: Here at last! Hope you enjpy. This is a light hearted read, but first a warning:**

**1. Resolve unto yourself never to play twister in a broom cupboard with Hermione Granger - there will be injuries.**

**2. Never ask Blaise Zabini to sing a lullaby - Some people should not be trusted with children**

**3. Don't leave your shoes in a place where Parvati Patil can find them**

**4. Asking Ginny Weasley for her honest opinion is contraindicated in people with moderate thick skin and self esteem. Caution: Hot water can scald.**

**5. I just realised I've spelt Katy with a y and not ie. Please don't get upset. **

**Read and review - make my day!**

* * *

><p>"It was Potter."<p>

The Slytherin common room was silenced, albeit temporarily. The primary emotion on people's faces was shock. Greengrass had a hand clamped over her open mouth, steadying swayed on her feet. Crabbe looked white as a sheet, back to the fireplace and even with shadows thrown over his face. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and droplets ran down his trembling fingers. In minutes, shock gave way into denial. Uneasy murmurs broke out like concentric ripples of water between eddies. Students who had stood crowding around Malfoy split apart like chunks, angling their bodies for hushed frenzied group discussion. Undercurrents of noise and feeling bubbled and frothed with rising conversations and accusations, breaking to the surface as crashing waves.

Theo watched the faces of his housemates, expressions snapping like tree bark, twisting into something ugly and unnatural. Fists were pumping around clenched wands. Half of them had drawn wands. None were sure what the hell for. So much contempt. Righteous rage. Yet they had no idea where to channel it. The slightest provocation and Theo was sure the mob would turn on itself.

Warrington spoke, wand arm flicking in Crabbe's direction. "You were supposed to take Malfoy to his room!"

"And I did!" Crabbe snapped, stepping of his back foot and away from the warm hearth.

Next to Warrington, Pucey snarled his disapproval. "Really did he stay there? Was that where Potter found him?"

"Fucking idiot! I told Blaise to take care of Malfoy." Flint said venomously in the Italian's direction.

Blaise said. "I'm not your bitch, Flint."

Warrington shouted over. "Well you could have saved us the trouble, Zabini of gathering here like a harem at some godforsaken hour of the morning."

Theo's nostril pinched. None of his housemates were going to lose sleep over him had his and Draco's positions been reversed. Well done, Blaise. Your housemates are congratulating you for your thoughtfulness. Look around. Doesn't your Greengrass look beautiful when she is glowering?

Warrington said. "The fact is that Malfoy was walking around for last 2 hours, getting progressively smashed so that Potter could pin hexes on him like notices."

Crabbe spat. "What was I supposed to do...?"

Several voices rose in protest. "For fuck's sake, Crabbe!"

"Crabbe, you tosser!"

"SHUT UP!" Flint shouted, quashing every other objection with his own ear splitting one.

Theo cleared his voice and raised a brow in anticipation, before gathering that Flint did not actually have anything to say. Flint just liked being heard. T

Theo turned his head to garner the attention of everyone on either side of him. "Potter is likely to be long gone. He has already got his target." He said, gesturing at Malfoy's still form. "We may as well return to our dorms and report this in the morning to Snape. Let it be taken care of in an official manner." He cleared his throat and adjusted his cuff. That would leave ample time for Nott to find and deal with Granger without running the risk of interruptions. "Malfoy's injuries do not warrant anything over and above Madame Pomfrey's healing talent. Someone could also owl Lucius Malfoy and inform him of the current situation. " Theo nodded sharply at Crabbe. "You can do the honours."

Theo had always considered his calm and collected manner a better way of dousing hot running passion than a bucket of ice. Ice could cool a threat, but glass removed a threat with the ready and bloody promise of its own. Men like him and his father had cold cores and sharp edges. Malfoy men were like ice in comparison, pale as albinos, and flimsy as tissue. Ice crushed under a heel of a boot like Voldemort's would stick and bleed out water. Glass shards and splinters had a way of crippling its wearer and draw blood like swords. For the first time in a long time Theo thought of his father, and in a good way. If Nott senior hadn't fallen prey to his addictions, the old bastard would have a made a formidable opponent indeed. Theo felt himself lurch forwards and yet found his body hadn't moved at all. The alcohol. It was still in his system; lounging like a concubine, he wanted gone because it was morning and they had their fun. Alcohol made him poetic. It also turned up the volume from muted on his inner dialogue; a sarcastic and snappy running commentary to external events as they happened.

In the silent moments following his speech, there was a profound change in the common rom. Collective passions buckled and ruptured like an aneurysm, seeping away from the twisted near empty vessel and running blindly into the furniture. The girls attending Malfoy stood up from crouched position and took small dazed steps back away from each other. The seventh year's boys turned and looked at each other in turn. Theo recognised confusion. They did not know what to do now. They were so sure of it before. He had just told them in plain terms what needed doing. So he willed himself to stand firm and steady, to see things through, as he had instructed, to a final outcome, which he intended.

Blaise nodded his approval. Their silent communication was at times more profound than their usual barbed exchanges. Blaise turned smoothly on his heel, aware of Nott mirroring his exact move. "Well night, night folks. I'm off to bed." Blaise strode over to the fireplace and clasped Crabbe's shoulder, shaking it. With a wink he said, "Redeem yourself old boy and do us proud!"

The corner of Theo's mouth lifted fractionally.

Blaise edged his way past two female students and the rest of crowd slowly began to part for him. Nott followed his course towards the staircase to the boy's dorms.

When Theo had reached the foot of the staircase with Blaise on the fourth step, Montague spoke in a low tone that carried further than it should have. "Potter's still here."

Theo could see the strands of his plan unravelling, faster than Pansy could shed clothes. He took a deep breath in, letting the mask of a veteran actor slide over his features. He turned his head stiffly, regarded the dark haired slytherin over one shoulder. "Really?"

Montague stretched his legs out into front of his plush black recliner and crossed them at the ankles. He said casually, "Malfoy's bottle was propped in the entrance like a doorstopper. Potter wanted access to the dungeons. Malfoy got hexed because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Too bad."

"Too bad? Too bad, no one can get any sleep around here!" Blaise looked ticked off. It was just too early in the morning for Montague's Meta analysis. He growled. "Potter has an invisibility cloak! Why would he attack Malfoy unless Malfoy had seen him? How would Malfoy have seen him if he was wearing the cloak? If Potter wanted access to the dungeons, he could have slipped in quietly! It doesn't make any sense."

The pretty blonde lounging against the banister snarled. "None of this is making sense!"

Blaise flashed a devastating smile at her and purred. "I know, sugar."

Montague continued. "Potter didn't come alone." He pointed at Theo. "You yourself said Malfoy was attacked by more than one person. We can reasonably expect Weasel twins, Finnegan and Thomas to be involved."

Pucey interjected. "And Longbottom and the other Weasel."

There. Theo's plan to evacuate the students back to the dorms had completely come undone. Pansy, take note.

Montague drove his final nail into the coffin. "It wasn't planned. Malfoy got unlucky." He raised his eyebrows at Theo in challenge.

If Theo was not competing academically with Granger, he had to contend with the slick and savvy Montague on the home front. Smarting, Theo maintained a neutral facial expression. He would do it if it killed him.

In response, Montague's smile broadened. "I apologise, gentlemen to have to disturb your beauty sleep. It seems we have a home security issue."

Flint rolled his sleeves back to reveal hairy muscled forearms. "And Malfoy will get his fucking revenge!" He bared his teeth. All of them. "We're going to rip this place apart if we have to. We're going to find Potter!" He counted off his fingers. "You! Bletchley, stay at the portrait entrance. Higgs, get the fifth year lads up! Pucey, take the girls back to the dorms and make sure they fucking stay there! Warrington and Crabbe, with me!" he leered. "Whoever finds Potter first can have his cloak. I'm going to crack his jaw open and hook all his teeth on a string and wear it."

There was applause, jeers and approval. Slytherin House was coming for Potter, and going for blood.

Montague stood up from his recliner. "Well come along, Blaise, Theo. Let's go on a walk."

* * *

><p>Common sense "defined as good sense and sound judgement in practical matters, and actually not that common. Perhaps if Ginny and she had more of it, they would not have tried to follow a trio of Gryffindor girls under an invisibility cloak through a criss-cross of unfamiliar corridors on hostile ground. If the slytherins had a spoonful of common sense among them, perhaps they would not have sent half their most spell-proficient year group back to their dorms, for being female. Instead the slytherins had chosen to use all their man power on this manhunt, convinced this was a matter to be settled by men hunting other men. If any remaining slytherin had but an iota of common sense, wouldn't they think to check all of the broom cupboards? It was a collective failure of Slytherin and Gryffindor house to put the common back in common sense despite succeeding to emphasis the <em>moron<em> in the apparent oxymoron.

The numerous heart stopping occasions where boys had run past their heavily warded broom closet, she had heard muttered expletives in Harry's name. Whatever. Harry deserved it, as far as she was concerned. He was probably tucked in bed right now, sore from all that...running. Hermione's head was sore just from thinking. Once the corridor outside became silent again, Hermione and Ginny paused to take stock of their surroundings. In the darkness, Hermione hoisted herself to a crouching position, crawling from beneath heavy trunks and duffel bags. Through the material of the bags, she groped the outline of a hard wooden pole. "Brooms!"

Ginny snorted, tumbling back onto her backside from her low squat. "It is a broom cupboard. OUCH!" she smacked her head on the floor.

"No Ginny," Hermione corrected. "This is where the Quidditch team keep their kit." Their hideously expensive team kit.

"Ah." Ginny said. "That explains the wards. I started panicking in the corridor when it took you longer than twenty seconds to crack them and get us in." She sat up again, massaging the back of her head. "So, how did you find this place?" It was well disguised to look like the rest of the oak panelled wall in the corridor.

One could hear the smile in Hermione's reply. "There's a spell in "Hogwarts: a history" that..."

"Right." Ginny held up a hand for silence. "I don't need to know anymore."

"I could teach it to you." Hermione offered.

Ginny rubbed the sore part of her scalp. "No need, pumpkin. I've got you. That's enough."

The seven people who had access to the kit cupboard had not thought to look here, which for a change, worked in Hermione's favour. It bought some time for Hermione and Ginny to mull over their options, but they had no idea where their three partners in crimes had headed. They had no way of getting in contact with them. Had the wizarding community ever heard of mobile phones? Their options were as followed: One- wait here, two- leave and look for the other girls, three- leave and go back to Gryffindor common room, and four- do all three.

Ginny read her mind. "We are going to be here for a very long time..."

"No." Hermione corrected. "We just need to decide what to do."

"And what have you decided?"

"I haven't."

Ginny snuggled under duffels and wriggled her warm toes in the confines of her shoes. "Like I said, we're going to be here for a very long time." She yawned loudly on time. "Wanna drink?" She lifted the firewhisky bottle and let it swing through her fingers.

"Don't be stupid." Hermione snatched the bottle.

"You're worse than my mother."

Light flooded the broom closet. The sound of a door opening followed after a split second delay and Hermione and Ginny froze.

It took the lip locked couple an agonising seven minutes to reach some sort of sweaty conclusion. Hermione was not sure where to look. Ginny who was sitting directly opposite was pulling all sorts of queasy faces and getting progressively green with the nghs, smooches and audible wet slap of bodies. The girl she could not place, but the boy had to be on the slytherin quidditch team. In the play of shadows, she assessed his body frame objectively. He seemed too thin to be a beater, or a keeper. Hopefully it was not Malfoy. Considering the number of spells the Gryffindors plied him with before they laid him to rest, if it were indeed Malfoy, it would be a resurrection to end all resurrections. Perhaps, it was Flint. She decided against it, this chap had more finesse. Hermione heard the rustle of more clothing and the telling clack of a belt being loosened. Ginny cupped her mouth and stared at her with pleading eyes. It was a warning. _If this doesn't stop soon, I'll projectile vomit. At you. _

_Charmed. _Admittedly, Hermione had reached her threshold of endurance. Regardless of whether it would compromise their position, she felt compelled to take some sort of action. Any sort of action. She took a deep breath in and composed herself. _You can do this. Nobody ever had the guts to hex Nott and you did it. This is just another step, on the slippery slope to moral decline. _Soundlessly she uttered the incantation. Ginny, watching the movements of her mouth seemed to ease up. She was under the mistaken belief that things were being taken care of. Hermione felt like whispering to her not to relax just yet. Wait for the fallout.

The boy pulled back immediately, fumbling with his trousers.

"What's the matter? What's wrong?"

He stammered. "Nothing. Err...hmm?"

The girl pouted her displeasure and reached for him again.

Ginny glared at Hermione, one hand on the ground tapping out growing levels of impatience. _Come on. What's happening?_

Hermione lifted a finger to her lips. _Be quiet._

Ginny's head lolled back on her neck, rolling her eyes. The kissing continued for another minute without interruption. Ginny resumed her tapping. Hermione averted her gaze from the show and looked at Ginny.

_ Poor showing, Granger. _Ginny tutted_. Not impressed._

Hermione shrugged._.. "What did you want me to do?" _She mouthed.

Ginny's eyes twinkled with mischief. Hermione knew she was asking for trouble._ "You could blow a hole through the wall and send them flying. I heard you learnt that in potions today."_

Hermione's smile dropped instantly. "I don't want to talk about it." She deadpanned.

The boy pulled back again. "Damn it!"

"Seriously, what's going on now, Adrian?" The girls swore. Ginny twisted her neck up to look at her. Her chin was so close to grazing the girl's knee. Was that Davis? Tracey Davis?

Hermione could the dawning realisation in Ginny's eyes. It was a seventh year, Adrian Pucey. Pucey and Davis.

The boy fumbled with his belt for a few seconds, studiously avoiding his partner's gaze.

She was not impressed by his reticence. Davis stamped a foot, missing Ginny by millimetres. "Adrian, what's going on?" Her voice dropped dangerously. "You _don't_ want this?"

"No, I do." He said. "I ...err...need some light."

"Is that all?" Davis squawked. She reached inside her open robes. "Rats, I don't have it."

He handed his wand without qualm. "Use mine."

"_Lumos_."

Hermione could not have reacted any quicker than she did. Pulling Ginny low to the ground with her, she scrabbled into a position under a duffel bag. _Don't look down, Davis. _She prayed. _Don't look down._

"It's jammed!" Pucey said, getting impossibly red by the second.

"What's jammed?"

He croaked. "My fliers."

Ginny's jaw dropped.

Tracey looked put out. "Is this a fucking joke?"

Ginny gasped and looked at Hermione. _No way. Did you do that?_ Her mouth was so wide open she could have swallowed a quaffle.

Davis took a step towards Pucey.

Hermione hand, braced on Ginny's neck, tugged her head sideways. _Not now, Ginny. _Ginny turned her head slowly, eyes taking in the narrow margin between her nose and Tracey Davis' ankle.

"Is this a fucking joke?"

"NO! I swear." He tugged harder at the zip, muscles in his forearm bulging in vain attempts. Pucey swallowed nervously and turned to face the far wall, resting his head on it, with his hands frantically trying to work the zip.

Tracey stood, opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish. Words were hard pressed to follow. "Well, this has never happened before..." Tracey fanned herself dramatically. "Merlin, what do you in a mess like this?"

Ginny bit her tongue from answering.

He snapped. "Would you stop shouting? I'm supposed to be looking for Potter."

Tracey parroted him. "I'm supposed to be looking for Potter – Is that where you'd rather be?"Last year Davis had been tolerable. Evidently that was last year. Ginny rammed her fingers into her ear to blot out the shrill retort she issued.

Adrian ignored Davis, intently focused on channelling the brute strength in his arms on his fliers. He grunted a few times with exertion.

"Why don't you use your wand?"

He gritted. "Then I wouldn't know where I'd be aiming it in the pitch black." Stupid bint. He rubbed his elbow a few times.

"For Merlin's sake, calm down." She fussed with her hair. "Adrian?"

He did not answer or look up.

"ADRIAN!"

"I'm in pain right now, Davis." Pucey was doubled over straining and coughing into his fist.

"This is just plain embarrassing!" Tracey folded her arms across her open shirt."Are you putting this on?"

**SNAP**

Hermione flinched. A metal strip struck her shoulder and pinged off. _Was that?_

Ginny stuffed a whole fist into her mouth. She nodded, eyes streaming.

Davis tried explaining. "I don't think Adrian, you understand how I feel."

Ginny let out a loud snort. A very loud snort.

Hermione's eyes sprang to their widest.

"ADRIAN!" She yelped in offense.

"Just give me a second." He was turning a rather unpleasant shade of purple. Hermione mused. Her grandma had a hat that colour. She wore it for weddings. At that point, Pucey knocked into something hard and wooden and yowled.

Hermione nearly screamed and pushed Ginny backwards. The redhead rolled onto her back and Hermione scrambled forwards. The stack of old beater bats toppled with their metal stand fell like timber, falling sideways from Pucey in a loud clatter. Hermione winced. She covered them both haphazardly with a dusty discarded bottle quidditch robe.

"A second!" Davis screamed, "Everything been on hold while you've been sorting out...whatever it is!" Her hands quivering with raw anger as she tried to do her buttons.

Ginny rolled onto her side and tried to sit up, Legs tangling in the robe and pulling it off Hermione's head. Hermione pushed her roughly. _Lie still._

Davis threw her tie around her neck and sniffled, adjusting the size of the knot until it was as bulbous as a turnip. "You're making a fool out of me."

Ginny scrambled, barrelling into Hermione as Davis turned and opened the door. The tell tale triangle of light swallowed more of the floor space. Ginny pushed Hermione back forcefully, crawling forwards on her hands and knees. Hermione's ankle, wrapped up in the dusty cloak, turned on as she slipped on a beater's bat. She tumbled.

Davis sniffled.

"Where are you going?" He said hoarsely.

The door slammed behind her. The door slammed a second time after Pucey, heavy footfalls thundered down the corridor in pursuit.

* * *

><p>Ginny shook her head at Hermione, "Merlin that was amazing! Seeing Pucey cockblocked like that. Tracey Davis was nearly balling her eyes out!" A revelation dawned on her. "You saucy little witch!"<p>

Hermione pre-empted. "You don't need to say anything."

"When we get back, I am so going to tell..."

Hermione reached over and pressed a hand over Ginny's mouth. "No, you won't. This is our secret."

"You wanna teach me that spell?" Ginny said eagerly. "The second one." She clarified.

Hermione deadpanned. "No."

Ginny was not shaken off that easily. She bounced back, with floppy eared happiness. "Hermione, you surprise me every day."

Somehow Hermione did not think that was a compliment.

"And here I was thinking you were a good girl." Ginny said.

"I am." Hermione said, grinding through her back teeth.

Ginny rolled onto her side. "Uh huh. We should celebrate." She snagged the firewhisky bottle from under the beater bats. "A toast to the new and improved you."

Hermione started. "Excuse me?"

Ginny chugged back a mouthful. "I like this gritty, daring, mean side to you. It's so femme fatale. Back in the day, you were just so boring."

"You mean yesterday?"

Gulp. Hiccup. "All the time, you'd spend reading in the library. I bet you never brushed your hair in first year. But you know what, after this morning I knew there was hope for you." She tried to sit up again and failed miserably. In consolation, she took a long swig. "I think you realised it as well. You brought down a wall in the potions classroom; you threw your skirt off. It was the biggest fuck-you- moment in the history of magic." Ginny tried to sit up again on jelly legs.

"When I _threw_ my skirt off?" Hermione repeated dumbly, trying to replay the events in her mind as they happened.

"Like an epic fuck-you. I mean it was massive! It beats the middle finger salute Harry has running across his forehead. "

Hermione opened her mouth and closed it again. She was not going to comment on Harry's scar.

Hermione tried to manoeuvre the conversation onto less personal territory. "And...And who was I meant to be swearing at?"

Swig. Gulp.

"The establishment. Duh."

Duh? Hermione did not feel any wiser.

Ginny continued regardless. "Throwing off your skirt was just like the proverbial flash-your tits-moment. Everybody was talking about it!"

Hermione looked as though she had been scalped.

Ginny peered at her closely. "Did you feel empowered?"

Hermione offense gave was to suspicion. "Are you sure that's firewhisky?"

She hiccupped loudly. "Oh yes! It's definitely firewhisky!" She said nodding her head vigorously.

"You're never usually _this_ blunt."

Ginny swatted at her. "Don't change the subject. We're talking about you." She took her friend's hands before they wandered to inspect the firewhisky bottle and wrinkled her face into a poor show of solemn thoughtfulness. "Hermione, I feel lucky witnessing your long overdue transition from bint to bitch."

Hermione's jaw dropped through the floor and landed somewhere in the great lake. Her self esteem was being eaten for breakfast by sharks.

Even then, Ginny was not quite finished. "I know we never really clicked before. But I think we could be good friends. "

"I think I need a drink." Hermione mumbled.

Ginny looked ready to cry with happiness. "Here, I don't mind sharing."

If anything featured on a list of impossible feats, it would be chasing Hermione Granger wearing an invisibility cloak through the second year boys' dorms. Two days ago, it was inconceivable for Theodore Nott to be humiliated by a muggleborn witch that he barely made a point to speak with. Yet in the space of 24 hours, she had launched a missile attack on his experiment in potions, bitch - slapped him in the forest, hexed his minor rival into unconsciousness, and _forced_ Nott to lie and cover for her folly. As a pureblood male of the Nott lineage, Theodore prided himself on his discreet unremarkable persona, to hide his true forceful personality. The iron fist in a velvet glove. Hermione Granger had effectively tipped a cauldron of flesh eating maggots onto his bland projection of self. Needless to say Theo felt stripped. He had never had such an eventful twenty four hours, with as much heart stopping drama as Rita Sweeter could pack in column in the Daily Prophet. As he sprinted under a low white marble archway, he thought he could do without the drama. He had a plan, a sketchy one by his standards but had no real means of implementing. It was simple: lose his doggedly persistent companions, Blaise and Montague, lock himself in a room with Granger and make her plead for her life... on her knees.

The dorm room they walked into contained eighteen four poster beds. More than half were occupied by sleeping boys. Theo motioned to Blaise to help him check the beds. Montague remained by the door, blocking the exit. Blaise and Theo each took a side of the room and made a systematic and thorough examination; swiping under the beds, patting down the mattress and blankets on either side of the sleeping occupants and checking the curtains around the bed. One of the young ones stirred and looked through heavy lids with annoyance. "What are you doing?" He yawned. Blaise slapped the top of his curly blonde head lightly, knocking it back onto the pillow. "Go to sleep, you little shit."

Montague shifted from 1 foot to the other conscious of the breadth of the doorway he filled, hairs prickling on his forearms. "Check the windows."

Blaise nodded curtly at Theo.

Theo moved to check the second last bed on his side, while Blaise went to the bay windows. There was a little boy buried so deeply in the covers that only tufts of spiky brown hair lay visible on his pillow. Theo almost smiled. He slept like that once. As Theo readjusted the pillow, his toe nudged against a trunk beneath the bed. A soft pliant trunk. He dropped to his knees; bodyweight braced on one palm and looked under. Nothing – as he expected. He swiped his arm under the bed and something started. He let the side of the bedding drop and proceeded to check the folds of the curtains.

"It's clean." Blaise said.

"We've lost them." Theo said.

"Dammit!" Montague cursed.

Blaise added. "We should check the other rooms along the corridor. It's plausible the girls only opened a door and let it slam to make us think they entered that specific room."

Montague said. "We may have to split up next time."

Theo said nothing. It would work in his favour regardless.

Katy opened the slip of parchment that the sullen sixth year boy left behind, peeling the edges apart like a wax strip. Angelina and Parvati nudged closer to her and looked over her shoulder. It was cramped under a four poster bed and the lighting was far worse. "What does it say?" Parvati whispered in hush tones.

"_Lumos_." They lay on their bellies. Katy passed the parchment to Angelina in the middle of the trio. Ange read. "Iliana. Room 6B."

"That's it? That's a short message." Katy said.

Pav echoed. "Err...what?"

"Bring the light closer." More rustling of clothes and the girls jostled into more comfortable positions.

Katy butted. "It's a password."

"To a room." Angelina waggled her brows suggestively. She propped herself up on her elbows. "Does he want us to go there?"

Katy looked perplexed. "I don't know. I've never spoken to him before." She paused. "Do you think he left it accidently?"

"Depends. Do you know anyone called Iliana?"

Pav shook her head. "That boy was Theodore Nott. He's too careful to do things by accident." She paused. "Maybe it's a code name."

"I don't care who he is or what Iliana means." Angelina said. "He's a slytherin and shouldn't be trusted."

"He could have ratted us out to Blaise and Montague." Katy said insistently. "I had a near heart attack when he swiped his arm under the bed."

"Maybe he helped Fred and George slip the potions out of Snape's office."

Angelina scoffed openly at Pav's suggestion.

Katy said heatedly. "Angelina, he _knew_ we were here!"

The bed above them creaked. Instinctively, the girls pressed themselves flat to the floor. Light from the end of Pav's wand was extinguished. Elbows, knees and wrist were scuffed on the descent. Come tomorrow there would be bruises. Pav curled her broken nails into her fist, with it her muted screams at the sleeping boy above them. Maternal instinct seemed to have gone out fashion with legwarmers. Katy paled at the colourful language. When the button nosed boy 30 centimetres above them finally got comfortable, the girls decided to wriggle out one by one.

"What are we going to do now?" Pav whispered, wiping the dust off her skirt.

Katy said. "I personally think we should going to go Room 6B. If it's got wards on it, it's likely to be secure. I'm pretty sure we passed it on the way here."

"Ange?"

Ange growled as though Katy had brow beaten her into this. "We don't have many options. We can't keep running down corridors and hoping to find Snape's room." Angelina reasoned impatiently, with one eye fixed on a boy with curly blonde hair whose chest rose and fell at an unsettlingly jagged rhythm. "Besides Katy just received a gilded invitation to rendez vous with tall, dark and handsome in a shower stall." She bumped heads with Katy under the cloak.

"Shower stall?"

"Presumably that what the B stands for. B for bathroom." Pav said. "He's not going to want us to meet in the dorms, is he?"

Angelina grated, on the verge of sneezing from the dust in the folds of material covering her face. "Get this, we are **not** going to be meeting him. We are going there because it is secure." She made sure to use Katy's own words.

"You're not convinced?" said the blonde.

"No." Ange deadpanned.

"We might meet someone else." Pav said suggestively. "In the shower stalls"

Katy clapped her hands together, nearly pulling the hood off all their heads.

* * *

><p>"<em>Iliana<em>."

The comforting snick of a lock opening and wards falling temporarily greeted them. The girls almost ran inside with giddy happiness. The door closed behind them and reality dawned. Happiness drained like blood from a wound.

"I expected a bathroom."

Pav nodded dumbly.

Katy shook herself. "This _is_ a room."

Pav interjected. "For two." Parvati's hawk eyes explored the room with the thoroughness of a totally unimpressed mother-in-law; twin beds; two wardrobes side by side, one writing desk, one chest of draws, two empty owl cages. There was a battered trunk under one of the beds. The room was not cramped, but hardly spacious for two six foot slytherins unless they alternated use of carpet and furniture. Thin strips of green carpet served as gangplanks between the furniture. The decor was masculine and consisted of a set of weights in the corner, heavy mud set walking boots, a black velvet throw, and a stack of heavily gilt tomes from the restricted section of the library. The colour scheme was green, black or brown.

Angelina was the first to break her silence. "The lucky sods get rooms!"

"This is unreal." Parvati said.

Katy interrupted in a sing song manner. "Girls, this is not what we came for."

"Maybe it's the inbreeding." Pav bit out. "You know - too few students to fill a dorm." One could tell Pav did not believe what she saying. Her pointy canines were oozing venom. "This probably explains why they are so antisocial. Oh and it explains their obsessive tendencies."

Angelina threw the cloak on the bed as though it was her residence. "The brat's a year younger than us and he gets a bloody room! For what? For being sorted into a house of insufferable gits when he was eleven!"

"Girls." Katy reminded. "We're digressing."

"I'm going to complain. This is so not fair." Angelina said irrationally.

"Do you think they pay higher fees for rooms?" Pav asked, walked past the pair of them to the only chest of draws, hauling the top draw out coolly for inspection. Carefully rolled up ties and belts. There were watches too. All branded.

"Pav, we shouldn't..." Katy said weakly.

The next draw was flung open and it contained an array of perfectly pressed and folded shirts. The contents of the third draw drew the most exclamations from the girls.

"Nott is a cross-dresser?"

Pav lifted a scrap of pale pink lace and dropped it immediately, screwing her face with disgust. There was more; a colourful splash of discarded jewellery, lipstick, underwear, bras and perfumes, wristwatches, scribbled notes in girly writing. She stared at Angelina.

Angelina looked mortified. "I think he's a serial killer." She said gobsmacked.

"A serial player more like." Said Katy, her eagle eyes spotting a green and gold teardrop earring nestled in the lace, with grim knowledge that Pav often wore a similar one in pink. She held her tongue. "He probably keeps list of his conquests."

"Why keep a list of names when you can remember girls as purple nail varnish and gold butterfly broach." Pav said, elbows deep in a draw. "Ooh this is nice." She lifted out a Kurt Geiger black stiletto, size 6. It did not however come in a pair. That was disappointing.

"Pav, shut it please. " Katy gestured to the third draw. "It's a bit much. I don't know...I just think it's creepy."

"The size of this draw..." Pav shook her head. "He gets laid often." Parvati shoved the draw back into place. "There a lot of Italian and leather and designer. I don't think any of this belongs to Nott." She remarked.

The girls said simultaneously. "Blaise Zabini."

After the mystery of mysterious roommate was solved, the three girls began a thorough rummage through every container/trunk/draw for old homework diaries, editions of Hogwarts: a history, anything that would contain a map of the dungeons. The best find was a wordy description of the structural plan of the dungeons in the oldest edition of Hogwarts: A history. Katy made a quick sketch of it with borrowed parchment and ink while Angelina and Pav restored the room to a semblance of order.

"Are we ready?" Katy asked.

Angelina replied. "Katy you've got the map. I've got my wand out. Pav, you have the veritaserum."

"Check." Pav replied. She clinked the veritaserum with their celebratory bottle of firewhisky, courtesy of Fred and George. "What?" She asked Angelina. "I'm not leaving it in Nott's room."

"Fine!" Ange snapped. "Everyone under the cloak now please."

Angelina shoulder knocked into Pav's as she reached for the door handle. Parvati stiffened on impact and Angelina regretted her carelessness immediately. Pav may have thought it was intentional. "Sorry." She said, awkwardly but realised that was not what grabbed Parvati's attention. She turned slowly to face the door. The handle was moving of its own accord.

Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Pause. THUMP! Someone was pounding the door with a think fist. Then followed a THUD – a sharp kick. "Theo! Theo, you in there? Let me in!"

* * *

><p>Ange and Katy backed away from the door reflexively pulling a semi paralysed Parvati with them. Tripping over a fold in the cloak, Pav stumbled and landed artlessly on her knees much to the annoyance of the two chasers.<p>

The male on the other side of the door, kicked it hard and yelled. "Theo, open the door. I can't get in!"

Angelina's eyes held a stern warning and she raised a single digit to her lips. Pav's shocked expression said it all. The voice belonged to Blaise Zabini and he could not get back into his own room. "I can't have lost you in the space of a minute!" He said kicking himself. "Theo, come out!"

They waited for him to leave. He got the message soon enough. When they were sure he had gone, they crumpled in a breathless heap on one of the beds, drained from mental and physical exertions. Their scatter brains had yet more information to remember and process. Blaise Zabini did not know the password to his own room. He was not even aware of there being a password, which meant that Nott had created wards and passwords pre-empting their arrival. "He was expecting us," said Pav hoarsely.

"Not necessarily." Angelina snapped. "He was expecting someone in an invisibility cloak. That's for sure."

Pav added, lungs heaving for mouthfuls of air. "There's not that many people who own invisibility cloaks at Hogwarts." She paused. "Harry is the only person I know."

Angelina barked. "I don't think Harry swings that way."

Katy coughed to clear phlegm for her throat. "I don't think Nott swings that way either. No one knows who Iliana is." Katy said thoughtfully, "She is definitely a female."

Pav butted in. "I thought Iliana was just the password."

Katy jolted upright as though struck by lightning. "Oh my God. Oh my God."

"What?" Angelina asked her, rising to a sitting position.

Katy said. "It's Hermione! Theodore Nott was expecting Hermione. _Iliana_ is Hermione."

The girls gasped collectively.

"That explains everything." Pav said. "They have so many freakish things in commons. "

Ange muttered to herself. "No wonder she did not want us to come along with her to the Dungeons!"

Pav looked outraged. "And I bet that 'Hogwarts: a History' is her copy!"

Katy reasoned. "I mean, why would Theodore Nott want to help us in the first place? Come to think of it, he's the last person who would slip Fred and George a potion from Snape's office."

"How long do you think they've been dating?"

Ange replied. "That's not important. How long do you think they've been sleeping around?" She thumped the mattress with her palm. "Poor Blaise Zabini has been kicked out of the love nest tonight and he didn't actually make that much noise."

Katy raised an accusatory finger skywards. "When we get back to the common room, Miss Iliana Granger is going to get an interrogation that will make the Spanish Inquisition run and hide." The other two nodded in agreement. Gryffindors did not fool around with slytherins. Ever. Angelina winced.

Pav added dramatically. "She never told me about him. I am so hurt! If Harry knew about this and I didn't...!

Katy interrupted. "But Pav, Harry is one of her best friends."

Pav fixed her with a hard look. "No, he isn't. Hermione and I have reached an understanding. We have a strict hoes-over -bros policy."

"Well not over this bro." Ange added drily.

There was a knock on the door. The girls jumped out of their skins. "Shit!" Pav said loudly, clamping a hand over her mouth, realising her mistake. The knocking resumed. Curious and fearful, they tiptoed to the door, wands drawn and quivering.

"It's me, guys, let me in."

Pav's eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. Katy looked vacantly at Angelina whose eye brows were performing a complicated quidditch manoeuvre.

The gentle rapping of wood continued. "It's me. It's Ginny."

The door was flung open and Ginny was hauled inside. Faster than chameleons could bounce their tongue off a tree. Ginny was marched and sat on the edge of a twin bed.

"Where the hell did you go?"

"Where is Hermione?"

"How did you find us?"

She held up her hands and then hugged her ribs, snorting air down to her lung bases. "Okay! Okay! Back off! I'll tell you everything."

No one moved a muscle in any direction and certainly not backwards. Ginny realised this. "Okay, what do you want – short or long version of events?"

"Short." Ange said sternly.

"Zabini was making such a racket outside this door. I knew something was up. Hermione is in the broom closet we were hiding in. We got bored and started drinking. I told her I'd find you guys and we'd pick her up on the way back to Gryffindor tower. She err...can't walk right now."

Angelina shrieked. "She can't walk?"

"I mean, she can walk... but not in a straight line."

Pav gasped. "What were you thinking Ginny?" Instinctively she held her own bottle of firewhisky behind her back.

Ginny replied hotly and shook off Angelina shackles. "She said she'd be fine in half an hour."

Katy scrutinised her, hand on hips like a matron. "What if we don't make it back to this broom closet?"

Ginny smiled. "Well mother, I told her to make her own way back if we did not pick her up in half an hour." All three girls broke out in furious mutterings and started shaking their heads in disdain. "Wait guys." Ginny gushed. "Hermione came up with a brilliant plan before she passed out."

Three heads turned to stare at her immediately. Pav croaked. "She ...passed out?"

* * *

><p><strong>NEXT TIME: <strong>

**_"I don't like this plan." Angelina said crossly, arms folded and daring anyone to say otherwise._**

**_"Personally, I think it's an excellent plan." Katie said. "Trust Hermione to come up with it in her...state. Ange! Don't just stand there moaning, hurry up and get changed!"_**

**_The chaser put her hand on her heart. "I promised myself that I wouldn't get naked in a slytherin's room again."_**

**_Katie dropped her clothes._**

**_Ginny swore._**

**_ "Again?"_**

**_Ange cringed. "Damn, I hadn't meant to say that."_**

**_Pav smirked. "Well ladies, the secrets are all coming out now..."_**


End file.
